Economics Uncut

Book excerpt: Economics Uncut: A Complete Guide to Life, Death and Misadventure, edited by Simon Bowmaker, contains several delightful chapters on topics central to economics and the family. Although the book s implicit thesis is to dazzle with the catholicity of economics, the chapters on marriage and divorce, reproduction, suicide, and abortion are lively introductions to these family topics, and other chapters make delightful reading on their own. Darius Conger, Economics and the American Family: A Review of Recent Literature , Choice This volume collects a wide array of economic explanations of social issues that are often thought to be beyond the realm of economic explanation. . . . This work will be valuable reading for general readers and undergraduate students. Graduate students in social sciences other than economics will find accessible economic explanations of many issues in their fields. Highly recommended. R.B. Emmett, Choice Expertly compiled and deftly edited by Simon W. Bowmaker Economics Uncut: A Complete Guide to Life, Death and Misadventure features informed and informative essays and seminal articles by eighteen accomplished economists on a variety of economic issues. . . A superbly organized and presented compendium of seminal studies and commentaries adhering to high academic standards of methodology and reporting, Economics Uncut is an important and strongly recommended addition to academic library Economic Studies reference collection, as well as being quite accessible to the non-specialist general reader with an interest in the economic implications and impacts with respect to the social issues of the present day. Library Bookwatch/Internet Bookwatch The book s variety of subject matter, combined with its innovative yet academic approach, makes it both entertaining as well as thought-provoking. Emma Winberg, Economic Affairs Economics Uncut presents itself as a complete guide to Life, Death and Misadventure . Whatever the specific chapter topic, from pornography to crime, from suicide to assisted reproduction, cost benefit analyses abound, demand and supply relations are discussed in an attempt to rationalize consumer preferences, choice and price levels and, thus, complex relationships are neatly reduced to mathematical equations, with tables and graphs being plentiful. Werner Bonefeld, Journal of Contemporary European Studies If you thought you could hide your secrets from the prying eyes of economists, think again. From sex to drugs to gambling to crime, this book will show you how the tools of economics can be used to understand just about any human behavior. This book will assuredly be the unofficial economist s guide to vice for the foreseeable future. Steven Levitt, University of Chicago and author of Freakonomics In this insightful and entertaining book, Simon Bowmaker introduces readers to the fascinating side of modern economics that applies economic analysis to a wide range of social issues from illegal drugs to religion and everything in between. In this form, economics is anything but the dismal science. This is a fun and enlightening book that shows readers what many economists often forget that economics is a powerful tool for understanding the world around them. Kevin M. Murphy, University of Chicago, US Economics is generally associated with the financial pages of newspapers apart from front page discussion of major topics such as inflation, budget deficits, or unemployment. However, the topics discussed in many of the other pages of a typical newspaper, such as crime, divorce, or sport, are also appropriate for economic analysis. Economics is concerned with decisions and many important topics in today s society involve taking drugs or committing a crime or getting a divorce, for example, and so can be examined from an economic point of view. Many of these areas can be considered from different directions: legal, medical, political, religious, sociological, or psychological, for