The Instant Economist

Everything You Need to Know About How the Economy Works

By: Timothy Taylor

Narrated by: Don Hagen

Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

The only economics book you will ever need.

Economics isn't just about numbers: It's about politics, psychology, history, and so much more. We are all economists - when we work, save for the future, invest, pay taxes, and buy our groceries. Yet many of us feel lost when the subject arises. Award-winning professor Timothy Taylor tackles all the key questions and hot topics of both microeconomics and macroeconomics, including:

• Why do budget deficits matter?
• What exactly does the Federal Reserve do?
• Does globalization take jobs away from American workers?
• Why is health insurance so costly?

The Instant Economist offers the knowledge and sophistication to understand the issues - so you can understand and discuss economics on a personal, national, and global level.

©2012 Timothy Taylor (P)2012 Gildan Media Corp

Timothy Taylor is the best

This was an excellent survey of the basics. Taylor establishes where economists agree, and highlights where they don't (mostly macroeconomics). He really knows how to explain economic thinking. He focuses on the intuitions at the heart of economics. Trade-offs are everywhere and we need to understand what these trade-offs are. He rids the listener of zero-sum thinking, as I think many people who don't understand economics succumb to. Any good citizen should be familiar with the basics of economics and this book is a superb deliverer of those basics. Graphs and complex mathematics are unnecessary for the most part. Taylor's Great Courses lectures on economics are also fantastic. I highly recommend them for anyone seeking to understand the world.

Reasonable Review of Key Concepts

This is not your typical airport economics book where an author applies economics to a few selected issues, but a textbook in audible form. My recollection is that the first 18 chapters were micro and the second half of the book covered macro, trade, etc. Most of the chapters were not particularly long, and there were no obvious cases where I felt the material was wrong, and a few situations where the examples might have been better chosen. For a book of this length, that is probably a pretty good record. In addition, one of the biggest challenges in producing a textbook in audible form is that you can't use graphs or charts to support the explanation. Surprisingly, that was not much of a problem in this text, as most of the explanations of concepts were pretty clear in audible form. I will say that any explanation of supply and demand curves, with movement along the curves vs. shifts in the curves is going to be difficult without seeing a few examples, but I am not sure that is the fault of the author or narrator.

As to the narrator, the pacing was pretty good and the reader did not get in the way of the material. In summary, about as good as a textbook can get in audible form; I find it hard to call it 'a great read'.

The best economic basics book

If you want to understand the basics of economics this is the best starter audiobook yet.

Economy so you can understand it.

I am no Economist but this book was a great introduction/refresher to the world of micro and macro economics. Uses good working examples to help understand the concepts. Good book if you're looking for one to just provide a overview of the complexity of the world economy.

A comprehensive and easily understood overview

A very useful book in the field of economics. It will definetely help everyday people view economics through a more informed lenses. I definetely liked the last chapter. The reason I didn't award a 5 star is because I believe that the author, while he is trying, ultimately fails to be quite objective. He states clearly that he supports some government intervention and in his initial assumptions he makes clear that he will not consider and analyze "no intervention" economics.

A good narrative of foundation of economics

an easy to understand narrative of basics of economics, a good refresher for those who studied the topic in college and a good introduction to those who are new to the field

Great overview of Economics

Covers all the bases. Nothing too dense, just the fundamentals.

If you are seeking to fill in gaps in your knowledge and gain a broader economic perspective, look no further.

Performance was excellent and very pleasant on the ears.