Customer Reviews: Read 37 more reviews...
 Surprisingly tough-going and subtly tendentious July 24, 2008
I bought this as a follow up to Robert Frank's excellent introductory beginners' guide "The Economic Naturalist". Based on Harford's columns for the Financial Times, "Undercover" is indeed a more academic approach, bringing in celebrated economists such as David Ricardo to explain why your tall skinny latte is such a rip-off (er, scarcity, apparently). The interesting overall concept is sadly undermined by some surprisingly ropey writing. Ideas often stagger across the page, tripped up by confusing analogies, and I found myself reading some more tortuous paragraphs many times to gain any sort of meaning. Nevertheless if you persevere into the second half of the book, which lurches into more politicised areas, there are a few absorbing insights and observations. Harford's prescription for the NHS, encouraging people to 'cost' unhealthy lifestyles, was genuinely thought-provoking as was the analysis of why poor Cameroon remains poor. However the standard free-market justification of sweatshop economics (better for people than scavenging on rubbish heaps) reminded me that a FT column is hardly a neutral platform, and more alarm bells rang for this exhausted reader with the author's scarily simplistic verdict on globalisation vs global warming. It was with some considerable relief I reached the final chapter on China. This was actually quite good, though China's success seems to have as much to do with constraining the free market approach Harford advocates than embracing it unreservedly.
 Interesting easy read. June 17, 2008
I'm only writing this because there seem to be a lot of negative reviews. I enjoyed it as holiday reading and recommended it to people I met. I more or less already new the economics so maybe I just liked hearing my own opinions being confirmed. It was a good purchase for me.
 Very accessible introduction to economics June 7, 2008
I found this book a good read, the best of a few similar books I picked up at the time. It has clear and interesting examples and discusses them each in enough depth to grasp the concepts described. I thought the whole book was very enjoyable and had useful references to others' ideas.
 Could not even finish it... April 11, 2008
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
I have read several pop-economics/basic economics books, and this one is the worst by far. Perhaps, it is because I had really high expectations and it severely underwhelmed, but I could not even finish it.
One quick aside, anyone who thinks (and a lot of the reviewers here seem to) the US health system represents a "free-market" system is sorely mistaken. There are some quasi-market components (e.g., insurance) but so many components that are not (e.g., FDA, Medicare/Medicaid, AMA) that it is erroneous (and for Mr. Harford, intellectually lazy) to say/imply the "system" is free-market. Just felt the need to opine on that...
Economics is the New Rock 'n Roll April 5, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
With the release, and runaway success, of Freakonomics publishers were faced with an interesting new phenomenon: The possibility that a book on economics could be interesting and could connect with the "common man" and as a result that it could sell in large numbers. Overlooking that Freakonomics was a book about statistical analysis, the hunt was on for other accessible economic texts.
As a result, a book as tedious and confused as Tim Harford's Undercover Economist has been allowed to reach the public.
To be sure, the book starts well - the opening chapters make for an interesting and informing introduction to economics, and form a promising introduction to the book. But pretty soon things begin to go awry. The chapter that explains why it is impossible to purchase a good second-hand car seems to ignore the likelihood that very many readers will have purchased perfectly good second-hand cars. From here on, Harford's credibility is damaged, and when he goes on to explain why countries are poor, and why globalisation is good without any of the earlier chapters credible and transparent economical theory to back up these assertions, he becomes trite and boring.
The Undercover Economist has its moments, Harford is a likeable and easy-to-read author, and the section on the 3G Wavelength Spectrum auctions is fascinating, and goes some way to explaining what seemed like an impenetrably confusing fit of behaviour on the part of these companies. But overall, after the first 25% or so, the book begins to drag, and fails poorly to live up to the promise of the early chapters, or to the marketing blurb on the cover.
The heartless survival-of-the-fittest neo-cons among reviewers find his book insufferably 'leftist' while the socialists find its claims that unrestricted capitalism is good for everyone intolerable. I just found it increasingly dull, and quite prescriptive. It didn't educate me and leave me to draw my own conclusions, it harangued me and expected me to share its conclusions without explaining adequately to me why I should.
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