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The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World | 
 enlarge | Author: Tim Harford
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $12.99
You Save: $12.01 (48%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  34 reviews
Sales Rank: 4884
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.2
ISBN: 1400066425
Dewey Decimal Number: 339
EAN: 9781400066421
ASIN: 1400066425
Publication Date: January 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
A Message to Amazon Readers from Author Tim Harford Give yourself a pat on the back. You're not as stupid as everyone says you are, and now there's a book that proves it. When I first conceived of The Logic of Life, my aim was to show that a world full of smart people--people like you, that is--doesnt necessarily look logical on the surface. We eat too much and worry about being fat; drink too much and cringe when we remember; spend too much at Christmas and worry about the bills in New Year. And thats just the small stuff: what about crime, racial segregation, divorce, big-money politics? And yet underneath it all there is a hidden logic. It isnt always pretty, but its there if you know how to see it. That is what The Logic of Life is all about. But when I'd finished the first draft, my editor told me that he didn't think that people were as logical as I'd said. He wanted me to prove my point. At first, I thought it was my editor thinks people are illogical because he works in the publishing business. Of course life looks illogical if you do that. (In fact, life looks crazy in most offices: see "Why Your Boss is Overpaid," chapter four.) But then I realised he was right. I'd left the most important step out. So I went back and made sure that I laid out all the amazing evidence. I looked at single women hitting the dating scene in American cities; I looked at juvenile delinquents across the US; I looked at Mexican prostitutes; I looked at traders at a convention in Disney World; I looked at professional poker players in Las Vegas and professional soccer players in Europe. I looked at violent spouses, alcoholics, and school bullies. In every case I discovered a story of hidden incentives and unexpected logic. And through the process of writing--and living--the book, I discovered that this crazy world of ours makes more sense than you might think.
Product Description
Life sometimes seems illogical. Individuals do strange things: take drugs, have unprotected sex, mug each other. Love seems irrational, and so does divorce. On a larger scale, life seems no fairer or easier to fathom: Why do some neighborhoods thrive and others become ghettos? Why is racism so persistent? Why is your idiot boss paid a fortune for sitting behind a mahogany altar? Thorny questions–and you might be surprised to hear the answers coming from an economist.
But Tim Harford, award-winning journalist and author of the bestseller The Undercover Economist, likes to spring surprises. In this deftly reasoned book, Harford argues that life is logical after all. Under the surface of everyday insanity, hidden incentives are at work, and Harford shows these incentives emerging in the most unlikely places.
Using tools ranging from animal experiments to supercomputer simulations, an ambitious new breed of economist is trying to unlock the secrets of society. The Logic of Life is the first book to map out the astonishing insights and frustrating blind spots of this new economics in a way that anyone can enjoy.
The Logic of Life presents an X-ray image of human life, stripping away the surface to show us a picture that is revealing, enthralling, and sometimes disturbing. The stories that emerge are not about data or equations but about people: the athlete who survived a shocking murder attempt, the computer geek who beat the hard-bitten poker pros, the economist who defied Henry Kissinger and faked an invasion of Berlin, the king who tried to buy off a revolution.
Once you’ve read this quotable and addictive book, life will never look the same again.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 29 more reviews...
 Well written, but contentious November 24, 2008
I enjoyed 'Freakanomics' & Harford's earlier book, 'The Undercover Economist'.
This was an enjoyable read with topics including poker tournaments, divorce, workplace politics, neighbourhood effects, racism, geographic agglomeration, voting and long-term economic growth.
I have some queries about the racism section though, and Harford's query "Why bother to get a degree or work experience if you are young, gifted, and black?". Bryan Caplan has looked at this and wrote:
"I tested these claims using one of the world's best labor data sets, the NLSY. The results directly contradict Tim's self-fulfilling prophesy story. Blacks actually get a substantially larger return to education than non-blacks! The same goes for experience, though the result is not statistically significant. The real lesson of the data is that if you are young, gifted, and black, you should get a ton of education, because it has an exceptionally large pay-off."
Also, I wonder if Harford considered Dr Satoshi Kanazawa's paper "The Myth of Racial Discrimination in Pay in the United States" (2005, Managerial and Decision Economics. 26: 285-294).
Overall, an interesting addition to the growing number of 'pop economics' books on the market, but not quite up to the predecessors.
Logic and Rationality is Not Really What This book is About October 26, 2008
The book is interesting and worthwhile to read, because it reveals studies and statistics (mostly by others) that illuminate why individuals and why society behave like they do. For example, it was surprising to learn how conclusive are the data supporting the idea that criminals actually are deterred by the severity of punishments specified by law. So we learn that criminals are more rational than many expert criminologists who argue for shorter jail sentences and condemn the irrationality of the death penalty.
The book does not prove that people are mostly rational or that people are not mostly rational, but simply that if one is clever or lucky about finding data, one can pinpoint a reason behind any observed behavior. For example, the evidence is convincing that black people in the USA have a disadvantage getting jobs measured against whites of similar qualifications. The author concludes it is rational for blacks to give up on education or, at least, devalue it and to adopt the social norm that getting an education is "acting white".
I disagree with how the author's uses the words, rational and logic. Just because there is a reason for a behavior does not mean the behavior is rational or logical. To take another example, short men and ugly men statistically have a great disadvantage gaining financial success. Men who are short or ugly men thus have a reason to abandon their personal efforts to compete with other mean, but it would not be rational or logical to do so.
That people have reasons for what they do is no great insight, so the author overreached when he selected the title of the book. But it was still interesting to read of some totally unexpected reasons the world is like it is.
Thought provoking September 8, 2008
Offers a slightly different perspective for understanding human behavior. I vastly prefer Harford's writing style to others in the genre. I don't care so much if we are labeled as rational or irrational, it seems to be a less relevant point to me. In fact, I would argue that the rational results he claims are inductive, not deductive, so they do not correspond with the logical thinking process that tends to accompany deductive reasoning. He doesn't claim that they do, it's just that there seems to be a silly argument out there about whether we are rational or not. I don't think it matters, as the means by which we come to a decision are varied.
 Human are both logic and irational creature August 25, 2008
The principle of the book is not very alien that human have logical and irrational qualities but the to use economics principle to explain many social phenomena is indeed intriguing
 Disappointing.....a one trick pony August 6, 2008
Tim Harford's "Logic Of Life" has only one point to make, that is, every decision one makes in everyday life is an economically rational one, whether one knows it or not. Imagine the subconscious mind working overtime making those minute calculations without the conscious mind knowing about it.
To illustrate the point, Harford opens with a titillating expose on the rising incidence of teenage oral sex in modern life before expanding his scope to include gambling, racism, crime, corporate remuneration, etc etc. Though moderately interesting in parts, I had a hard time finishing the book as the chapters got more and more mundane and further and further away from the point he was making. By the time I reached the three quarter mark, I was ready to give up.
I haven't read Harford's bestselling "The Undercover Economist" so I can't judge but "Logic Of Life" seems like pretty thin gruel. After a chuckle inducing opening, the book starts to read like a one trick pony. Disappointing.
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