The Unassuming Economist

From Tim Harford:

“My list of five of the best introductions to economics wasn’t exactly the usual suspects, but I wanted to stray a little further off the obvious territory and recommend six books you might want to read to give you an unusual introduction to economics.

A couple of years after the financial crisis I came across Charles Perrow’s Normal Accidents (UK) (US). Perrow is a sociologist who became fascinated by particular kinds of system, ones which were “complex” (meaning that consequences of error are unpredictable) and “tightly coupled” (meaning that the consequences unfold quickly and irreversibly). His case studies include terrible accidents such as the Challenger disaster and Chernobyl – hauntingly described – but I increasingly came to realise that economic and financial systems could and should be studied with the same eye.  (For the same reason, I’d also recommend anything by James Reason. (UK) (US).)

Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein’s Cartoon Introduction To Economics (UK) (US) is perfectly conventional in many ways – except that it’s a cartoon, and also pretty funny, as you might expect from Bauman, a stand-up comedian. Good stuff.”

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