Recommended reading (1): Economic Naturalists

   In my last post, I said I would like to recommend some books that are good complements of teaching or learning economics. However, finding appropriate books for this is not easy. There are many good books applying economics with interesting examples. However, these works often have not made explicit what economic concepts are adopted. Students may not be able to tell which economics concepts have been used and so cannot learn how to apply these concepts. Hence, if we could start from some readings that are more explicit in using economics for analysis, it is better.
   Robert H. Frank’s Economic Naturalists is an obviously good economics book from this perspective. This book is easy to read. It is not wordy in introducing the abstract economic principles. It is basically a collection of many cases of applied economics, some written by the author while some others by the author’s students. In each case, a daily-life event is explained by some economic concepts. For example, why the best-selling CDs, with huge market demand, are cheap but the unpopular CDs, with small demand, are expensive? You can find a convincing answer from this book. You can also find a lot more interesting cases in this book. 

   I know that many students like this type of economic analysis, using daily-life events as objects of study. Honestly, I personally do not prefer doing this type of analysis. But I think this book does a good job by and large (although I do not agree with all of the analysis in these cases) and this is a good learning reference.  The economic concepts that he use in this book are also elementary. In fact, this book is a result of Professor Frank's teaching an economics course for junior students. He has to teach these concepts but he also ask students to use these concepts to do some analysis for daily-life issues. Eventually, he got a book.

   Professor Frank is an economics at Cornell University, US. He did many interesting works both in academic research and in popular readings. In fact, I read most of his recent books. He seems to have a special talent in identifying some interesting, but neglected, aspects in the real world, bringing them into rigorous analysis and delivering convincing answers to puzzling questions. My academic researches are also highly influenced by his works. Hence, even though my preference for daily-life economics is low, I am still happy to read his book because I know his work will be of quality.