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The Economic Naturalist
I recommend Robert H. Frank's book "The Economic Naturalist" for insight into everyday economics (extracts at http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/why-do-retirees-buy-such-big-houses-and-other-riddles-from-the-economic-naturalist/ http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/why-do-reti... and http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/more-from-the-economic-naturalist-robert-frank/ http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/more-from-t...). As those URLs suggest, it is of the Freakonomics genre, though IMHO better than the original Freaknomics by being broader and more fundamental. Ch 3 ("Why equally talented workers often earn different salaries...") resonates with PG's articles about inequality/productivity, though unfortunately I can't find extracts from that chapter online.
- danteembermage 19y agoI thought the square milk, round pop question was a cool example of "When you've got a hammer" Ask an economics class why milk is square and they'll talk about the marginal cost of refrigerator space and packaging, while the engineer (from the comments) will first think of carbonated milk and exploding milk cartons. I'm reminded of my square-milk-carton-ginger-ale-brewing experiment that my wife eyed nervously every time she saw it bulging in the back of the fridge.