Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One
Author: Thomas Sowell
This revised edition of Applied Economics is about fifty percent larger than the first edition. It now includes a chapter on the economics of immigration and new sections of other chapters on such topics as the “creative” financing of home-buying that led to the current “subprime” mortgage crisis, the economics of organ transplants, and the political and economic incentives that lead to money earmarked for highways being diverted to mass transit and to a general neglect of infrastructure. On these and other topics, its examples are drawn from around the world. Much material in the first edition has been updated and supplemented. The revised and enlarged edition of Applied Economics retains the easy readability of the first edition, even for people with no prior knowledge of economics.
Ideas On Liberty
Thomas Sowell is one of the fine scholars of our time.
Policy
If there is a single recent book that can advance economic literacy in this country, it is Thomas Sowell's latest book, Basic Economics.... Sowell has managed to make economics humane again, relevant and interesting to young people and ordinary citizens.... Buy a copy and read it immediately—no: buy two, and give one to a school teacher, a journalist, or a politician near you!
Publishers Weekly
While politicians squabble over the pros and cons of price controls on prescription drugs, onlooking citizens are often left scratching their heads. Many of today's economic issues are obscured by their inherent complexity and the blarney coming from political talking heads. In his follow-up to Basic Economics, Sowell, a leading conservative spokesman and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, seeks to alleviate this confusion. He highligh ts the major differences between politicians (who act for the short term, i.e., reelection) and economists (who look at the long-range ramifications of policy), and urges voters to keep these differences in mind. Sowell then focuses on a few issues, including some political hot potatoes: medical care, housing, discrimination, insurance and the development of nations. He urges readers to consider not only the intended, immediate goal of a particular policy, but also its unintended, long-range impact. For instance, he says, supporters of nationalized health care overlook the fact that it often results in health-care shortages, reduced quality of services and black markets. The great achievement of Sowell's book is its simplicity. His writing is easy and lucid, an admirable trait considering the topic at hand. This book will not satisfy hard-core economic junkies, and Sowell does not pretend it will. His target audience is the average citizen who has little or n o economics background, but would like the tools to think critically about economic issues. Some readers will be turned off by Sowell's preference for free-market principles, but the author is an esteemed economist and his explanations fit well within the mainstream. As a basic primer for the economically perplexed, this volume serves very well. (Dec.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
This new book is a spirited and controversial examination of how economic choices in public policy often result in unforeseen consequences. Sowell, a professor of public policy at Stanford and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy, examines labor, medical care, housing, and other areas of economic activity. He says that in stage-one thinking, making housing affordable by setting rent controls would seem to be self-evident but that such rent controls both reduce the stock of low-rent housing and cause that stock to deteriorate in condition. He explains that many landlords don't bother to offer properties when rents are low and that those who do find very little incentive to maintain them. On the institution of slavery in the American South, Sowell says slaves were usually better cared for than other laborers because of the slave owners' economic self-interest. He defends the existence of slums as low-cost hous ing that in the past allowed the residents who chose to live in them to use their funds for other purposes. His predictably laissez faire approach to economics will grate on many readers, but his reasoning is clear and thoughtful. Every library covering economics or public administration will require a copy.-Lawrence R. Maxted, Gannon Univ., Erie, PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Table of Contents:
| Preface | ||
| 1 | Politics versus Economics | 1 |
| 2 | Free and Unfree Labor | 31 |
| 3 | The Economics of Medical Care | 69 |
| 4 | The Economics of Housing | 97 |
| 5 | Risky Business | 129 |
| 6 | The Economics of Discrimination | 161 |
| 7 | The Economic Development of Nations | 193 |
| Sources | 223 | |
| Index | 241 |
New interesting book: Black Letter on Antitrust and Fraud Examination with CDROM
The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit
Author: Thomas J Sugru
Once America's "arsenal of democracy," Detroit has become the symbol of the American urban crisis. In this reappraisal of America's dilemma of racial and economic inequality, Thomas Sugrue asks why Detroit and other industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty.
Bruce Nelson
[Sugrue's] disciplined historical engagement with a complex, often in glorious, past offers a compelling model for understanding how race and the Rust Belt converged to create the current impasse. -- America Magazine
Table of Contents:
| 1 | "Arsenal of democracy" | 17 |
| 2 | "Detroit's time bomb" : race and housing in the 1940s | 33 |
| 3 | "The coffin of peace" : the containment of public housing | 57 |
| 4 | "The meanest and the dirtiest jobs" : the structures of employment discrimination | 91 |
| 5 | "The damning mark of false prosperities" : the deindustrialization of Detroit | 125 |
| 6 | "Forget about your inalienable right to work" : responses to industrial decline and discrimination | 153 |
| 7 | Class, status, an d residence : the changing geography of black Detroit | 181 |
| 8 | "Homeowners' rights" : white resistance and the rise of antiliberalism | 209 |
| 9 | "United communities are impregnable" : violence and the color line | 231 |
| Conclusion : crisis : Detroit and the fate of postindustrial America | 259 | |
| App. A | Index of dissimilarity, blacks and whites in major American cities, 1940-1990 | 273 |
| App. B | African American occupational structure in Detroit, 1940-1970 | 275 |
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