Product Description

Life sometimes seems illogical. Individuals do strange things: take drugs, have unprotected sex, mug each other. Love seems irrational, and so does divorce. On a larger scale, life seems no fairer or easier to fathom: Why do some neighborhoods thrive and others become ghettos? Why is racism so persistent? Why is your idiot boss paid a fortune for sitting behind a mahogany altar? Thorny questions–and you might be surprised to hear the answers coming from an economist.

But Tim Harford, award-winning journalist and author of the bestseller The Undercover Economist, likes to spring surprises. In this deftly reasoned book, Harford argues that life is logical after all. Under the surface of everyday insanity, hidden incentives are at work, and Harford shows these incentives emerging in the most unlikely places.

Using tools ranging from animal experiments to supercomputer simulations, an ambitious new breed of economist is trying to unlock the secrets of society. The Logic of Life is the first book to map out the astonishing insights and frustrating blind spots of this new economics in a way that anyone can enjoy.

The Logic of Life presents an X-ray image of human life, stripping away the surface to show us a picture that is revealing, enthralling, and sometimes disturbing. The stories that emerge are not about data or equations but about people: the athlete who survived a shocking murder attempt, the computer geek who beat the hard-bitten poker pros, the economist who defied Henry Kissinger and faked an invasion of Berlin, the king who tried to buy off a revolution.
Once you’ve read this quotable and addictive book, life will never look the same again.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15462 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-15
• Released on: 2008-01-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Amazon.com
A Message to Amazon Readers from Author Tim Harford

Give yourself a pat on the back. You're not as stupid as everyone says you are, and now there's a book that proves it.

When I first conceived of The Logic of Life, my aim was to show that a world full of smart people--people like you, that is--doesn’t necessarily look logical on the surface. We eat too much and worry about being fat; drink too much and cringe when we remember; spend too much at Christmas and worry about the bills in New Year. And that’s just the small stuff: what about crime, racial segregation, divorce, big-money politics?

And yet underneath it all there is a hidden logic. It isn’t always pretty, but it’s there if you know how to see it. That is what The Logic of Life is all about.

But when I'd finished the first draft, my editor told me that he didn't think that people were as logical as I'd said. He wanted me to prove my point.

At first, I thought it was my editor thinks people are illogical because he works in the publishing business. Of course life looks illogical if you do that. (In fact, life looks crazy in most offices: see "Why Your Boss is Overpaid," chapter four.) But then I realised he was right. I'd left the most important step out.

So I went back and made sure that I laid out all the amazing evidence. I looked at single women hitting the dating scene in American cities; I looked at juvenile delinquents across the US; I looked at Mexican prostitutes; I looked at traders at a convention in Disney World; I looked at professional poker players in Las Vegas and professional soccer players in Europe. I looked at violent spouses, alcoholics, and school bullies.

In every case I discovered a story of hidden incentives and unexpected logic. And through the process of writing--and living--the book, I discovered that this crazy world of ours makes more sense than you might think.

From Publishers Weekly
Financial Times and Slate.com columnist Harford (The Undercover Economist) provides an entertaining and provocative look at the logic behind the seemingly irrational. Arguing that rational behavior is more widespread than most people expect, Harford uses economic principles to draw forth the rational elements of gambling, the teenage oral sex craze, crime and other supposedly illogical behaviors to illustrate his larger point. Utilizing John von Neumann and Thomas Schelling's conceptions of game theory, Harford applies their approach to a multitude of arenas, including marriage, the workplace and racism. Contrarily, he also shows that individual rational behavior doesn't always lead to socially desired outcomes. Harford concludes with how to apply this thinking on an even bigger scale, showing how rational behavior shapes cities, politics and the entire history of human civilization. Well-written with highly engaging stories and examples, this book will be of great interest to Freakonomics and Blink fans as well as anyone interested in the psychology of human behavior. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
The spry narration of L.J. Ganser keeps this audiobook moving as author Tim Harford, a British economist, seeks to prove how cold-hearted economic concerns permeate myriad aspects of life. That topic would be dull in the hands of a lesser writer, but Harford favors examples that catch the imagination, such as a classroom experiment that shed light on how racism can arise "rationally." Harford is British, and half his examples involve London, so a British narrator would have been appropriate. But Ganser, an American, was a fine choice. His self-assured, energetic, and occasionally bemused delivery is a good match for Harford's breezy writing style. E.D.R. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Disappointing.....a one trick pony
Tim Harford's "Logic Of Life" has only one point to make, that is, every decision one makes in everyday life is an economically rational one, whether one knows it or not. Imagine the subconscious mind working overtime making those minute calculations without the conscious mind knowing about it.

To illustrate the point, Harford opens with a titillating expose on the rising incidence of teenage oral sex in modern life before expanding his scope to include gambling, racism, crime, corporate remuneration, etc etc. Though moderately interesting in parts, I had a hard time finishing the book as the chapters got more and more mundane and further and further away from the point he was making. By the time I reached the three quarter mark, I was ready to give up.

I haven't read Harford's bestselling "The Undercover Economist" so I can't judge but "Logic Of Life" seems like pretty thin gruel. After a chuckle inducing opening, the book starts to read like a one trick pony. Disappointing.

At best a badly edited book
I liked Tim Hartford's earlier work - The Undercover Economist very much. I have taken a few graduate courses in Economics and loved the way the book refreshed and even gave new concepts to me. Thus, I picked up The Logic of Life with a lot of expectations. These expectations were badly dashed.

My big problem with this book is that Hartford lacks rigor. In a popular book I wouldn't expect the rigor of an academic article, but when an author draws conclusions that are wider ranging than warranted or if the author factually incorrect then I do have a problem. There are at least a couple of instances when Hartford does that. For me it taints the whole book - making me ask questions such as what if Hartford is factually incorrect in other places that I don't know about.

Hartford relies a lot on the experiments of John List to set up his premise - People are more rational in their day to day life than psychologists give them credit for. One set of List's experiments demonstrated that experienced pin and baseball card collectors are able to make rational decisions in situations where rookies often make irrational ones. Hartford then extends this logic to claim that as people are experienced in their day to day life - in activities such as work and shopping - they are unlikely to make the rookie irrational mistakes. To me this is a big stretch. I don't know anyone who thinks a day-to-day shopping decision through as much as an experienced collector would. A little effort from the author here in establishing his premise would have been really well served.

Hartford really lets go of rigor when criticizing the work of Jeffery Sachs. Coincidentally, I was reading "The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time" by Jeffery Sachs at the same time I was reading Logic of Life and I was shocked by Hartford's presentation of Sachs' theories and also his refutations. For example, Hartford says that malaria is unlikely to be a cause of under-development as it kills only young children and not adults. Sachs has argued in reasonable detail how malaria can cause poverty (absenteeism, delay of investment projects, undereducated children and parents making decisions of having more children). I for one cannot understand how one line stating malaria kills children and hence does not effect economy from Hartford is anything but a lazy piece of writing. Hartford' writing on the topic gets almost bizarre when he then states "In any case, these diseases can be fought by countries with the resources to do so." As this statement is apparently to refute the logic of Sachs, it is mind boggling as Sachs to my mind is also saying the same thing. The disease can be fought - however, the really poor countries do not have the resources to do so. At best statements like these are very poor editing of the book. The point here is not if Sachs is correct or not. The point is that if you are refuting the theory of a person, the least you should be doing is to state it correctly and in full.

For me, if I start doubting one part of the book I start thinking - this author is not very incorrect about a part I know about, so can I trust him on other parts where I don't know too much? This does sharply reduce the enjoyment of what is a very readable book.

Best of the current crop of pop-economic books
I've read a lot of books lately on human behavior, the economics of daily life, and game theory.

Although "Freakonomics" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner is the most famous recent book of pop economics (and I did quite enjoy it), I think the best of the current lot is this one: "The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World" by Tim Harford, a columnist for The Financial Times and Slate.

Harford takes on fascinating topics -- starting with the increase in the number of teenage girls performing oral sex! -- and explains why each behavior is strictly rational in an economic sense.

Now, yes, the behavior may not be what some people want -- but that's the point of the book: unless social engineers understand why it makes sense for individuals to behave as they do (and Harford's thesis is that almost all people do what makes best sense for them under their specific circumstances), any hope of changing that behavior is doomed to failure.

Other topics tackled include why it makes rational sense for companies to pay their CEOs what seem to most of us to be obscene amounts of money, and the various forces that contribute to the continuing disadvantaging of African-Americans.

It's a fascinating read, and it's also extremely well-written: clear, witty, and well-organized. Highly recommended.