The Undercover Economist Strikes Back

How to Run-or Ruin-an Economy

De: Tim Harford

Narrado por: Cameron Stewart, Gavin Osborne

A provocative and lively exploration of the increasingly important world of macroeconomics, by the author of the bestselling The Undercover Economist.

Thanks to the worldwide financial upheaval, economics is no longer a topic we can ignore. From politicians to hedge-fund managers to middle-class IRA holders, everyone must pay attention to how and why the global economy works the way it does.

Enter Financial Times columnist and bestselling author Tim Harford. In this new book that demystifies macroeconomics, Harford strips away the spin, the hype, and the jargon to reveal the truth about how the world’s economy actually works. With the wit of a raconteur and the clear grasp of an expert, Harford explains what’s really happening beyond today’s headlines, why all of us should care, and what we can do about it to understand it better.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Every Tim Harford book is cause for celebration. He makes ‘the dismal science’ seem like an awful lot of fun.”
– Malcolm Gladwell

“With fascinating examples and vivid explanations, Tim Harford succeeds in turning macroeconomics into a gripping read.”
—Simon Singh, author of Fermat’s Last Theorem

"Tim Harford is perhaps our very best popular economics writer, and with this book he turns his attention to inflation, unemployment, business cycles, and macroeconomics, with lucid clarity and compelling insight."
—Tyler Cowen, author of Create Your Own Economy and The Great Stagnation

"Tim Harford is a brave man to write a book about macroeconomics for the lay person; luckily, he is also a funny man...his perky style and chatty asides keep us grinning... [and he] has a knack for posing questions the average reader will have wondered about."
—Wall Street Journal

"Harford has a knack for writing about economic issues in a clear and gripping way."
—Worth Magazine

“Harford brings vigor and even humor to otherwise dry topics…[and] clarity to what has often been comprehensible to only a select few.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Independent thinkers aspiring to a better understanding of the world economy and of possible fixes for the current downturn will delight in this crisp, readable, and knowledgeable explication and analysis of macroeconomic events and theoretical perspectives.”
—Library Journal

“By the end of this book, you'll have learned so much that you'll be just as confused as the experts – and anything but bored.”
—The Christian Science Monitor

“Tim Harford is perhaps the best popular economics writer in the world… what [he] has achieved with his new book is nothing less than the holy grail of popular economics. While retaining the accessible style of popular microeconomics, he has managed to explain, with clarity and good humour, the knottiest and most important problems facing the world’s biggest economies today.”
—The New Statesman

“With beguiling clarity and…effortlessly breezy style… Harford explains the subject with impressive clarity and wit.”
—The Times (London)

A good and enjoyable overview of macro econ.

This was recommended to me by a friend when I asked for a good introduction to macroeconomics and it was just what I was looking for. Very accessible, yet still comprehensive. would recommended to anyone who is curious about the subject.

Macroeconomics is hard

What did you love best about The Undercover Economist Strikes Back?

Tim Harford is the Great Explainer of economics, and no one could have de-mystified the subject of macroeconomics as well as Tim. But still, no one really knows how the macroeconomy works, and "teaching the controversy" is a tall order even for the greatest of explainers.

Any additional comments?

Tim's first book, The Undercover Economist, is on more solid theoretical and empirical ground, simply because microeconomic phenomena (buying and selling things) are so much better understood than macroeconomic phenomena (recessions, booms, growth and inflation).

Good as far as it goes....

Interesting and understandable, though I imagine it is more enjoyable to listen to than to read.
The main issue I have is with what it doesn't say. Harford seems to try to be balanced between Keynesian and Classical economists, but fails to account for Austrian School solutions or perspectives, in favour of Keynes.
That aside, it doesn't stray too far into the weeds to be boring or incomprehensible.

Superb! Great Listen on Macroeconomics.

This book was just what I was looking for: A book that covers macro-econ ideas that is deep enough to get a real grasp of what it is all about but simple enough to be appropriate for an audio. The narrator did a great job.

The writing if fairly balance between different schools of thought and presents several viewpoints.

If you are looking for a armchair (car ride) introduction to Macro this is a great pick.

All the things wrong with economics

While central planning of the populous by elites has been proven disastrous everywhere, economists still think the economy should be centrally planned. They discuss the economy like a machine in which the author of this book places a person 'in charge of the economy'
What it ethically means to put someone in charge of the economy and who is being charged, I leave up to the readers imagination. It involves monopolies, central banks an governments. The wise men in power who control interest rates to print money for those in power.
All that is wrong with non austrian economists, employed by power, is repeated here.