Naked Economics

Undressing the Dismal Science

260 pages

English language

Published Sept. 4, 2003 by W. W. Norton & Company.

ISBN:
978-0-393-32486-0
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4 stars (3 reviews)

Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science is a book by Charles Wheelan that seeks to translate basic economic issues into a format that can be easily read by people with little or no previous knowledge of economics. The Chicago Tribune described the book as "Translat[ing] the arcane and often inscrutable jargon of the professional economist into language accessible to the inquiring but frustrated layman." A fully revised and updated version of the book with a foreword by Burton Malkiel was published in 2010. It has been translated into eleven languages.

7 editions

Review of 'Naked Economics' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Great non-mathematical introduction to a broad spectrum of topics in economics. Discusses the power of markets, how government helps and hurts them, how they succeed and fail (externalities and information asymmetries), the importance of productivity and human capital, how the Fed and financial markets work, the benefits of free trade, the power of organized interests (i.e., political economy).

Laura's choice excerpts:
http://myurbanrevolution.com/2010/02/09/interesting-excerpts-from-naked-economics/

Review of 'Naked Economics' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This book was informative, enlightening, and intelligent. I think it brings up many salient economic points that are utterly unexamined in typical news analysis, for example, that inflation is sometimes encouraged by corrupt governments to minimize their debt. And yet ...

There are some blatantly unexamined assumptions here. This book gives some pretty short shrift to the arguments against the way free trade agreements are being hashed out, and doesn't even mention the phrase "sustainable economics." It's as if Schumacher never wrote Small Is Beautiful. If you're looking for a more nuanced explanation of what's happening with Social Security, World Trade, and the Federal Reserve that what your getting on the TV, this book would still be a great start.

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4 stars