![Amazon prime logo](https://cdn.statically.io/img/m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/marketing/prime/new_prime_logo_RGB_blue._CB426090081_.png)
Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
Buy new:
-32% $17.52$17.52
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: FindAnyBook
Save with Used - Good
$9.66$9.66
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: Eagle Fork Enterprises
Learn more
1.27 mi | ASHBURN 20147
Returnable | Yes |
---|---|
Resolutions | Eligible for refund or replacement |
Return Window | 30 days from delivery |
Refund Timelines | Typically, an advance refund will be issued within 24 hours of a drop-off or pick-up. For returns that require physical verification, refund issuance may take up to 30 days after drop-off or pick up. Where an advance refund is issued, we will re-charge your payment method if we do not receive the correct item in original condition. See details here. |
Late fee | A late fee of 20% of the item price will apply if you complete the drop off or pick up after the ‘Return By Date’. |
Restocking fee | A restocking fee may apply if the item is not returned in original condition and original packaging, or is damaged or missing parts for reasons not due to Amazon or seller error. See details here. |
Return instructions
Item must be in original condition and packaging along with tag, accessories, manuals, and inserts. Unlock any electronic device, delete your account and remove all personal information. |
Returnable | Yes |
---|---|
Resolutions | Eligible for refund or replacement |
Return Window | 30 days from delivery |
Refund Timelines | Typically, an advance refund will be issued within 24 hours of a drop-off or pick-up. For returns that require physical verification, refund issuance may take up to 30 days after drop-off or pick up. Where an advance refund is issued, we will re-charge your payment method if we do not receive the correct item in original condition. See details here. |
Late fee | A late fee of 20% of the item price will apply if you complete the drop off or pick up after the ‘Return By Date’. |
Restocking fee | A restocking fee may apply if the item is not returned in original condition and original packaging, or is damaged or missing parts for reasons not due to Amazon or seller error. See details here. |
Return instructions
Item must be in original condition and packaging along with tag, accessories, manuals, and inserts. Unlock any electronic device, delete your account and remove all personal information. |
![Kindle app logo image](https://cdn.statically.io/img/m.media-amazon.com/images/G/01/kindle/app/kindle-app-logo._CB668847749_.png)
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Den tist Hardcover – August 2, 2007
Purchase options and add-ons
In Discover Your Inner Economist one of America’s most respected economists presents a quirky, incisive romp through everyday life that reveals how you can turn economic reasoning to your advantage—often when you least expect it to be relevant.
Like no other economist, Tyler Cowen shows how economic notions--such as incentives, signals, and markets--apply far more widely than merely to the decisions of social planners, governments, and big business. What does economic theory say about ordering from a menu? Or attracting the right mate? Or controlling people who talk too much in meetings? Or dealing with your dentist? With a wryly amusing voice, in chapters such as “How to Control the World, The Basics” and “How to Control the World, Knowing When to Stop” Cowen reveals the hidden economic patterns behind everyday situations so you can get more of what you really want.
Readers will also gain less selfish insights into how to be a good partner, neighbor and even citizen of the world. For instance, what is the best way to give to charity? The chapter title “How to Save the World—More Christmas Presents Won’t Help” makes a point that is every bit as personal as it is global.
Incentives are at the core of an economic approach to the world, but they don’t just come in cash. In fact, money can be a disincentive. Cowen shows why, for example, it doesn’t work to pay your kids to do the dishes. Other kinds of incentives--like making sure family members know they will be admired if they respect you--can work. Another non- monetary incentive? Try having everyone stand up in your next meeting if you don’t want anyone to drone on. Deeply felt incentives like pride in one’s work or a passing smile from a loved one, can be the most powerful of all, even while they operate alongside more mundane rewards such as money and free food.
Discover Your Inner Economist is an introduction to the science of economics that shows it to be built on notions that are already within all of us. While the implications of those ideas lead to Cowen’s often counterintuitive advice, their wisdom is presented in ordinary examples taken from home life, work life, and even vacation life… How do you get a good guide in a Moroccan bazaar?
Read Tyler Cowen's posts on the Penguin Blog.
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDutton
- Publication dateAugust 2, 2007
- Dimensions6.5 x 0.75 x 9.25 inches
- ISBN-100525950257
- ISBN-13978-0525950257
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now
Customers who bought this item also bought
- Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never ChangesHardcoverFREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by AmazonGet it as soon as Sunday, Aug 11
- Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing RegulationBryan CaplanPaperbackFREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by AmazonGet it as soon as Sunday, Aug 11
- Nudge: The Final EditionPaperbackFREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by AmazonGet it as soon as Sunday, Aug 11
- Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without BurnoutHardcoverFREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by AmazonGet it as soon as Sunday, Aug 11
- Principles: Your Guided Journal (Create Your Own Principles to Get the Work and Life You Want)HardcoverFREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by AmazonGet it as soon as Sunday, Aug 11
- The Armchair Economist: Economics and Everyday LifePaperbackFREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by AmazonGet it as soon as Monday, Aug 12
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Tyler Cowen is a rare bird: an economist who's a wonderfully entertaining writer but also a deeply humane thinker. Discover Your Inner Economist will certainly change the way you think about an array of subjects, ranging from ethnic food to marriage to our never-ending quest for novelty. But even more important, it'll give you a sense of the real possibilities the world has to offer, and show you how thinking better can actually help you live better. -- James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds
Tyler Cowen is an economist, culture vulture, restaurant critic and the best blogger in the world. All roles are on display in Discover Your Inner Economist. It's charming, smart and very, very creative. And it will change your life in the best way: in small steps. -- Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist, columnist and editorial writer for The Financial Times
Tyler Cowen is an economist, culture vulture, restaurant critic and the best blogger in the world. All roles are on display in Discover Your Inner Economist. It's charming, smart and very, very creative. And it will change your life in the best way: in small steps. -- Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist
About the Author
From The Washington Post
"We are all Keynesians now," President Nixon is said to have declared in 1971.
His words affirmed the influence of John Maynard Keynes, the famed British economist who decades earlier had argued that smart governments could fine-tune a nation's economy and avert major slumps by manipulating taxes and spending.
These days, though, big-think economic theories feel a little passé. Why worry about inflation or unemployment or budget deficits when you can use economics to figure out why hotel mini-bars are so expensive? Or why people pay for gym memberships they rarely use? Or which first name will maximize your newborn's lifetime earnings?
We may have been Keynesians once, but times change. We are all Freakonomists now.
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's 2005 bestseller, Freakonomics, captivated readers by using economics to demystify the little conundrums of daily life. I'd never wondered what schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common, or why drug dealers live with their moms, but somehow Levitt and Dubner made me care.
It hardly took an economist -- freakish or otherwise -- to recognize a new market. A glut of similar books soon emerged, such as Tim Harford's The Undercover Economist, Robert H. Frank's The Economic Naturalist and, now, Tyler Cowen's Discover Your Inner Economist.
The books have much in common, including food imagery on their covers. Freakonomics shows an apple cut open to reveal an orange inside. (Message? Expect the unexpected!) Discover Your Inner Economist dangles a carrot. (Incentives are everything!) And The Economic Naturalist puts a pie chart next to an actual slice of pie. (Theory becomes practice!)
But open the covers, and the differences are notable. Inner Economist may not be the best organized or most gracefully written, but it could prove the most useful of the lot, especially if you share the author's interests. An economics professor at George Mason University, Cowen has written extensively on art and ethnic dining, and his chapters exploring those topics are particularly engaging.
The key to tapping your Inner Economist, Cowen explains, is the ability to identify people's true incentives, which are usually more than money. Suppose you want your daughter to help out around the house by washing dishes. Should you pay her?
Bad idea, Cowen warns. If you explain that washing dishes is her family responsibility, she may not always obey, but at least she'll feel some obligation. Bring payment into the picture, and her motivation changes. It becomes a market transaction, writes Cowen, and "the parent becomes a boss rather than an object of deserved loyalty." Your daughter will be less likely to reach for the Palmolive and more inclined to find part-time work that earns respect from her friends. "Expect dirtier dishes," Cowen concludes.
If you're visiting an art museum, your Inner Economist has tips to improve your experience. In each room, decide which painting you'd steal. "This forces us to keep thinking critically about the displays," Cowen writes. "If the alarm system was shut down and the guards went away, should I carry home the Cezanne, the Manet, or the Renoir?" If imaginary theft gives you qualms, pretend you're shopping. "We are probably better trained at shopping than looking at pictures," Cowen explains. How would you spend $500,000 at the Met? The smaller your imaginary budget, the better chance you'll avoid famous paintings and find interesting, lesser-known works.
Cowen also offers techniques for fine dining. At upscale restaurants, many people mistakenly order items they could easily cook at home. Instead, Cowen suggests, "order the item you are least likely to think you want." Chances are, you'll be happily surprised.
And if you're seeking great food overseas, Cowen offers ruthless economic logic: "It sounds heartless, but look for a big gap between the rich and the poor." Wealthy people are a strong market for tasty food, Cowen argues, and poor people will cook for low wages. "My meals in Mexico, India, and Brazil are typically delicious and cheap," he says.
Cowen encourages readers to disregard so-called sunk costs -- the money or time we've already spent on something -- and to make decisions based on future prospects. If a waiter doesn't know what entrée to recommend, walk out of the restaurant. If a movie is boring, leave halfway. If the book you're reading isn't "the best possible book I can be reading right now," find another.
That's all very well, I suppose. But what if finding parking near another restaurant could consume half your evening? What if you're at that movie with a date? And what if that book you're reading is, say, Discover Your Inner Economist?
Perhaps the ultimate affirmation of the Freakonomics phenomenon -- beyond the spate of copycat books -- is the backlash it has sparked. In April, the New Republic published an essay decrying the rise of "cute-o-nomics," lamenting that "clever" topics are crowding out important economic research.
If anything, I'd imagine Freakonomics helps the economics profession, attracting new students and making the dismal science a smidgen less dismal. When's the last time you saw someone thumbing through Keynes's General Theory at the beach?
Yet Keynes remains instructive here. Nixon's praise, ironically, came just as traditional Keynesianism began to fall from favor. High inflation and persistent unemployment during the 1970s undermined the notion that governments can ensure economic stability. Alternative economic theories soon prevailed, at least for a while.
Maybe the Freakonomics craze is peaking as well. Sure, it's fun to use economic principles to unravel everyday riddles. But cutting-edge researchers are going further, deploying the tools of psychology and neuroscience to probe economic behavior, using imaging technology to map our brains and understand how we invest, buy and save. Now that's freaky.
Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
Product details
- Publisher : Dutton; First Edition (August 2, 2007)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0525950257
- ISBN-13 : 978-0525950257
- Item Weight : 1.05 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.5 x 0.75 x 9.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,016,290 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #20,622 in Success Self-Help
- #23,281 in Economics (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
![Tyler Cowen](https://cdn.statically.io/img/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/01Kv-W2ysOL._SY600_.png)
Tyler Cowen (/ˈkaʊ.ən/; born January 21, 1962) is an American economist, academic, and writer. He occupies the Holbert L. Harris Chair of economics, as a professor at George Mason University, and is co-author, with Alex Tabarrok, of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution. Cowen and Tabarrok have also ventured into online education by starting Marginal Revolution University. He currently writes a regular column for Bloomberg View. He also has written for such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Time, Wired, Newsweek, and the Wilson Quarterly. Cowen also serves as faculty director of George Mason's Mercatus Center, a university research center that focuses on the market economy. In February 2011, Cowen received a nomination as one of the most influential economists in the last decade in a survey by The Economist. He was ranked #72 among the "Top 100 Global Thinkers" in 2011 by Foreign Policy Magazine "for finding markets in everything."
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book engaging and thought-provoking. They also say the writing style is well-written and will make them think about incentives.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book engaging, thought-provoking, and informative. They also say it's a simple, interesting little book that describes how the power works.
"...The end result is a practical, insightful, and often hilarious self-help book that utilizes the full power of economic reasoning and also teaches..." Read more
"...However, the majority of the things he did talk about were VERY interesting and informative...." Read more
"...of Economics at Georges Mason University, has written a simple and interesting little book that describe how the understanding of how incentives..." Read more
"...Not only stimulating, his book is very entertaining and sometimes almost thrilling...." Read more
Customers find the book well-written and breezy. They also say it's a quick and easy read.
"...It's not quite so pop-culture as Freakonomics. But this book is well-written & will make you think about incentives in your every day life...." Read more
"...stuff, especially the chapter on Food and 7 deadly sins, and it's worth reading. Not worth buying though...." Read more
"...Still, this is a quick and breezy read. When the marginal costs are so low, the occasional gem of insight yields positive net benefits indeed." Read more
"...It's not poorly written. Instead, it wanders amiably through topics talking about the role of incentives...." Read more
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
The book is also distinguished in the breadth of fulfilling topics it covers. While Freakonomics mostly details academic papers of Steven Levitt unlikely to improve one's daily life, Cowen never constrains himself to his own research. You will not find a single academic paper written by Cowen in the book's references, though plenty of mentions for his blog Marginal Revolution. He respects a wide range of sources, whether they be academics, journalists, or other bloggers. His prose jumps quickly and often abruptly between topics, but this freer style allows him to efficiently expose the reader to a wide variety of ideas. At times the academic in me screamed for more rigor in some of his arguments, but ultimately I feel the book was better off as written. The book provides only the detail necessary to make a point, and this allows for 221 pages of light and invigorating reading.
By producing such a variety of advice, Cowen ensures some reader disagreement, but the book is better for it. No one buys Chicken Soup for the Soul expecting every single anecdote to be life-changing, and this book needs to be approached the same way -- and unlike most other self-help books, this one is always entertaining. My impression is that if readers ignore or forget 99% of the book's specific advice a month after they've read it, the lifelong benefits of a few tips can be worth the price. And for readers that learn to apply Cowen's thinking throughout their daily lives, this book becomes a cornucopia.
I expect readers will respond most favorably to Cowen's sections on art and food, as these are where he shows the most passion and relies the most on his personal experience. His arguments for broadening horizons -- becoming a "cultural billionaire" in his words -- are the most convincing. The chapter on self-deception made me feel much better about myself, as I feel I utilize "necessary" self-deception and avoid "dangerous" self-deception. (Or is this feeling another example of my self-deception?) I anticipate readers will differ widely in which advice affects them the most. The only way to find out is to read the book yourself.
So far, so good. Where the book lets off is where it stops being insightful like that. You can't review a book without reviewing the other books in its genre - the Washington Post review of this book in the Amazon page spends half the time comparing it to Freakonomics. On one level that's not fair because a book should stand or fall on its own. On the other hand, nothing exists in a vacuum and where the author himself references Freakonomics in his own book you can get a bit of a pass for doing it in a review too. As I've pointed out and as the author does as well, unlike Freakonomics, this book purports to tell you not just where economics principles can help but also where they hurt. In that case he has to get this right too. And I don't feel he did. Continuing the example: if paying your daughter to do the dishes means she won't do as good a job and will instead look for a better-paying job, is that a bad thing? Depends what you're trying to motivate her to do and what result you're seeking. It's that last analysis that Cowan doesn't give enough here. Freakonomics told you its motivations, and what would be motivated by following economics principles. Cowan doesn't tell you what you lose or what you gain by abandoning them. He should have.
Top reviews from other countries
![](https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png)
![Customer image](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/common/transparent-pixel._V192234675_.gif)
![](https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png)
Reviewed in Italy on October 28, 2018
![Customer image](https://cdn.statically.io/img/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71LrDPz4SpL._SY88.jpg)
![Customer image](https://cdn.statically.io/img/m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71FI6dbYXqL._SY88.jpg)
![](https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/default._CR0,0,1024,1024_SX48_.png)
Dans un genre proche lisez plutôt le magistral " Système 1 / Système 2 : Les deux vitesses de la pensée " de Daniel Kahneman, qui est tout ce que ce petit ouvrage n'est pas : riche, abordable, passionnant, et susceptible de changer définitivement votre vision de vous-même et du monde.
![](https://images-fe.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/amazon-avatars-global/a5083cef-d908-48ad-873f-9bd967d2ce8a._CR62,0,376,376_SX48_.jpg)
各章で取り上げられる例も具体的で面白い。
2章:インセンティブについて、皿洗いの手伝い・車のセールスマン・外交官の駐車券などの例が挙がっている。どういうときに金を払えば効果的になるか考えようぜと言っているのだ。
3章:マラケシュ(迷いやすい)のガイドに旅行者はどう対応すべきか。さすが70ヶ国以上行っているだけはある!
4章:希少性について、美術館の例がある。人の認識力は限られているが、その中でどうすれば絵画・本や音楽から一番満足を得られるのか。"Me factor"("自分に"とっては楽しいことを優先する)の使いよう。ときには無理してでも努力したほうがいいこともある。
5章:シグナリングについて、デートの誘いの例が挙がる。どうすれば効果的に自分を印象付けられるのか。
6章:自己欺瞞について。自信を失うとやる気がなくなった経験は誰しもあるだろうが、どういう利用をしたらいいのか考えている。
7章:所得格差について。おいしい料理を食べるには、所得格差があ��国に行くといいとのこと。
8章:避けるべき7つの大罪
9章:寄付について。貧しい人を救うにはどういうように寄付するのが効果的か。
研究者の人にはこんなメッセージ。
1.The postcard test:ハガキ大に論文をまとめろ
2.The Grandma test:おばあちゃんにもわかるように話せ
3.The Aha Principle:納得のいく理論を作れ
著者に興味を持った人は彼のブログを見てみるといい。[...]