| Description |
1 online resource (xii, 390 pages) : illustrations (black and white) |
| Contents |
Lesson 1, part I. The lesson : Market prices and opportunity costs : What is opportunity cost? ; Production cost and opportunity cost ; Households, prices, and opportunity costs ; Lesson one ; The intellectual history of opportunity cost -- Markets, opportunity cost, and equilibrium : TISATAAFL (There is such a thing as a free lunch) ; Gains from exchange ; Trade and comparative advantages ; Competitive equilibrium ; Free lunches and rents ; Adam Smith and the division of labor -- Time, information, and uncertainty : Interest and the opportunity cost of (not) waiting ; Information ; Uncertainty -- Lesson 1, part II. Applications : Lesson one: how opportunity cost works in markets : Tricks and traps ; Airfares ; The cost of (not) going to college ; An exception that proves the rule: the boom and bust in law schools ; TANSTAAFL: what about "free" TV, radio, and internet content? -- Lesson one and economic policy : Why price control doesn't (usually) work ; To help poor people, give them money ; Road pricing ; Fish and tradable quota ; A license to print money: property rights and telecommunications spectrum ; Concluding comments -- The opportunity cost of destruction : The glazier's fallacy ; The economics of natural disasters ; The opportunity cost of war ; Technological benefits of war? -- Lesson 2. part I. Social opportunity costs : Property rights and income distribution : What lesson two tells us about property rights and income distribution ; Property rights and market equilibrium ; The starting point ; Property rights and natural law ; Pareto and inequality ; Conclusion -- Unemployment : Macroeconomics and microeconomics ; The business cycle ; The experience of the great and lesser depressions ; Are recessions abnormal? Unemployment and opportunity cost ; The macro foundations of micro ; Hazlitt and the glazier's fallacy -- Monopoly and market failure : The idea of market failure ; Economics of size ; Monopoly ; Oligopoly ; Monopsony and labor markets ; Bargaining ; Monopoly and inequality -- Market failure: externalities and pollution : Externalities ; Pollution ; Climate change ; Public goods ; The origins of externality -- Market failure: information, uncertainty, and financial markets : Market prices, information, and public goods ; The efficient markets hypothesis ; Financial markets, bubbles, and busts ; Financial markets and speculation ; Risk and insurance ; Bounded rationality ; What bitcoin reveals about financial markets -- Lesson 2, part II. Public policy : Income distribution: predistribution : Income distribution and opportunity cost ; Predistribution: unions ; Predistribution: minimum wages ; Predistribution; intellectual property ; Predistribution: bankruptcy, limited liability, and business risk -- Income distribution: redistribution : The effective marginal tax rate ; Opportunity cost of redistribution: example ; Weighing opportunity costs and benefits ; How much should the top 1 percent be taxed? ; Policies for the present and the future ; Geometric mean -- Policy for full employment : What can governments do about recessions? ; Fiscal policy ; Monetary policy ; Labor market programs and the job guarantee ; One lesson economics and unemployment ; Summary -- Monopoly and the mixed economy : Monopoly and monopsony ; Antitrust ; Regulation and its limits ; Public enterprise ; The mixed economy ; I, pencil -- Environmental policy : Regulation ; Environmental taxes ; Tradeable emissions permits ; Global pollution problems ; Climate change ; Summary -- Conclusion |
| Summary |
A masterful introduction to the key ideas behind the successes--and failures--of free-market economicsSince 1946, Henry Hazlitt's bestselling Economics in One Lesson has popularized the belief that economics can be boiled down to one simple lesson: market prices represent the true cost of everything. But one-lesson economics tells only half the story. It can explain why markets often work so well, but it can't explain why they often fail so badly--or what we should do when they stumble. As Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson quipped, "When someone preaches 'Economics in one lesson, ' I advise: Go back for the second lesson." In Economics in Two Lessons, John Quiggin teaches both lessons, offering a masterful introduction to the key ideas behind the successes--and failures--of free markets. Economics in Two Lessons explains why market prices often fail to reflect the full cost of our choices to society as a whole. For example, every time we drive a car, fly in a plane, or flick a light switch, we contribute to global warming. But, in the absence of a price on carbon emissions, the costs of our actions are borne by everyone else. In such cases, government action is needed to achieve better outcomes. Two-lesson economics means giving up the dogmatism of laissez-faire as well as the reflexive assumption that any economic problem can be solved by government action, since the right answer often involves a mixture of market forces and government policy. But the payoff is huge: understanding how markets actually work--and what to do when they don't. Brilliantly accessible, Economics in Two Lessons unlocks the essential issues at the heart of any economic question |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Free enterprise.
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Economics.
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Capitalism.
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Economics
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economics.
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BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Economics -- General.
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BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Reference.
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Capitalism
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Economics
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Free enterprise
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Lliure empresa.
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Preus.
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Escalfament global.
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Economia de mercat.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780691186108 |
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0691186103 |
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