Are there tangible benefits in flossing? Is it wrong to fake orgasms? What does the perfect online dating ad look like? Should we bother doing the ironing? Is it really impossible to buy the perfect Christmas gift? (Other than this book, of course.) Economists might not be the first people you would think of to give you advice on such diverse areas as parenting, the intricacies of etiquette or the dark arts of seduction. But for years bestselling author Tim Harford has been doing just that: answering the most challenging questions in his brilliant column, where he uses the tools of economics to give practical advice about everyday dilemmas, conundrums and concerns. From family rows and the stock market to buying socks or speed dating, you'll find within these pages a witty - and of course rational - explanation for almost everything you ever wanted to know about life.

Profiting from China without getting burned is currently an obsession with the international investment community. The estimated size of the Chinese economy has just been revised upwards, making it the 4th largest in the world behind the US, Japan and Germany, and ahead of the UK but the idea that investing in China is a sure-fire, get-rich-quick investment story is dangerously misleading. The author of the bestselling "Investment Biker, Adventure Capitalist, and Hot Commodities", is providing a book that provides a window into what will soon be the most vital, most lucrative market of our time: China.While the Chinese economy has had an annual average growth of 9.4 percent since 1978, and despite the ongoing speculation about China's future, its stock market is now emerging from a six-year low. As the Chinese economy continues to lumber toward a free market system - and as the Chinese government inevitably unpegs its currency and opens its stock market to more foreign investment, Rogers foresees an abundance

How can your name affect how well you do in life? What do estateagents and the Ku Klux Klan have in common? Why do drug dealerslive with their mothers? The answer: Freakonomics. It’s at theheart of everything we do and the things that affect us daily: fromsex to crime, parenting to politics, fat to cheating, fear totraffic jams. And we can use it to get to the heart of what’sreally happening under the surface of everyday life. This cultbestseller will show you how, by unravelling your life’s secretcodes, you can discover a totally new way of seeing the world.

'Truly eye-opening ...There is almost no situation that Harford cannot dissect with his sharp economist's tools ...economics has never been this cool' NEW STATESMAN If humans are so clever, why do we smoke and gamble, or take drugs, or fall in love? Is this really rational behaviour? And how come your idiot boss is so overpaid? In fact, the behaviour of even the unlikeliest of individuals - prostitutes, drug addicts, racists and revolutionaries - complies with economic logic, taking into account future costs and benefits, even if we don't quite realise it. We are rational beings after all.

It is in Books IV and V of The Wealth of Nations that AdamSmith offers his considered response to the French Physiocrats,perhaps the first great school of economic theorists, and assessesthe nature of the mercantile system, particularly the colonialrelationship with America, whose achievements could have been evenmore spectacular if conditions of free trade and economic union hadexisted. Even on the eve of the Declaration of Independence, Smithfamously predicted that America "will be one of the foremostnations of the world." It is also here that he develops the casefor a limited state role in economic planning, notably to combatmarket failure and induce efficiency in areas such as education,public works, justice, and defense. His pioneering analysis stillprovides many subtle and penetrating insights into one of today'smost vital and controversial policy debates. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Andrew Skinner

Unrivaled in its unique combination of analytical rigor and accessibility, Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach has garnered one of the broadest adoption lists in the market. Now appearing in its Sixth Edition, Professor Varian's hallmark text is better than ever, featuring new treatments of game theory and competitive strategy, and a variety of new illustrative examples. Modern, authoritative, and above all crafted by an outstanding teacher and scholar, Intermediate Microeconomics, Sixth Edition will expand students' analytic powers and strengthen their understanding of microeconomics.

A storm is coming, a turbulent new era in which the planet's supply of oil will be overtaken by demand. Fuel prices will soar and inflation will skyrocket-but with this guide, two leading financial strategists show you how to weather the worst of it, and even capture impressive returns. With the help of the author's 'all season' Oil Indicator, you'll learn how to choose the right investments for any market environment, as you discover; why oil and natural gas stocks should be core holdings in every investor's portfolio, why a cautious buy-and-hold strategy is a sure monet loser, why conventional 'safe' stocks are really the riskiest, why gold may be on the verge of a historic bull run, how the global oil wars make defense stocks a premium buy, where to find the best bets in the field of alternative energy, how to profit from real estate without actually owning any.

For the Third Edition, 2001 Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz joins forces with new co-author Carl Walsh, who brings both economic expertise and teaching savvy to the project. Together, Stiglitz and Walsh thoroughly integrate contemporary economics into the traditional curriculum. Informed by the broad range of research that earned Professor Stiglitz the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, the first edition of this text pioneered important topics relating to the economics of imperfect markets, which are today's standard in all principles texts. Only this text, however, gives those topics serious attention, with complete chapters on imperfect information in product markets, imperfections in labor markets, technological change, and environmental externalities, as well as a complete chapter on strategic behavior. 作者简介： Joseph E. Stiglitz is professor of economics, business, and international and public affairs at Columbia University. Known throughout the world for his groundbreaking research, J

Out of the red... Do this month's bills pile up before you'repaid last month's? Do you regularly receive past-due notices? Doyou get letters threatening legal action if immediate payment isnot made? Do the total amounts on your revolving charge accountskeep steadily rising? Into the black... Whether you are currentlyin debt or fear you're falling into debt, you are not alone. Fortymillion Americans--from doctors to secretaries, from executives tothe unemployed--face the same problem and live under the same dailystress. Based on the proven techniques of the national DebtorsAnonymous program, here is the first complete, step-by-step guideto getting out of debt once and for all. You'll learn: How torecognize the warning signs of serious debt. How to negotiate withangry creditors, collection agencies, and the IRS. How to design arealistic and painless pay-back schedule. How to identify yourspending " blind spots." How to cope with the anxiety and dailypressures of owing money. Plus the three cardinal rules for s

An incisive look at the global economic crisis, our flawed response, and the implications for the world’s future prosperity. The Great Recession, as it has come to be called, has impacted more people worldwide than any crisis since the Great Depression. Flawed government policy and unscrupulous personal and corporate behavior in the United States created the current financial meltdown, which was exported across the globe with devastating consequences. The crisis has sparked an essential debate about America’s economic missteps, the soundness of this country’s economy, and even the appropriate shape of a capitalist system. Few are more qualified to comment during this turbulent time than Joseph E. Stiglitz. Winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, Stiglitz is “an insanely great economist, in ways you can’t really appreciate unless you’re deep into the field” (Paul Krugman, New York Times). In Freefall, Stiglitz traces the origins of the Great Recession, eschewing easy answer

Perhaps the hottest field in macroeconomics, economic growth is fascinating to theorists and critically important to policy makers. Charles Jones, a rising star in the field, explains the inroads economists have made in understanding how economies grow. The story begins with empirical evidence: how rich are the rich countries, how poor are the poor, and how fast do the rich and poor countries grow? Jones then presents major theories of growth, from the Nobel Prize-winning work of Robert Solow to the new growth theory that has ignited the field in recent years.

Capital, one of Marx's major and most influential works, wasthe product of thirty years close study of the capitalist mode ofproduction in England, the most advanced industrial society of hisday. This new translation of Volume One, the only volume to becompleted and edited by Marx himself, avoids some of the mistakesthat have marred earlier versions and seeks to do justice to theliterary qualities of the work. The introduction is by ErnestMandel, author of Late Capitalism, one of the only comprehensiveattempts to develop the theoretical legacy of Capital. --This textrefers to the Paperback edition.

In the summer of 2003, the New York Times Magazine sent Stephen J. Dubner, an author and journalist, to write a profile of Steven D. Levitt, a heralded young economist at the University of Chicago. Levitt was not remotely interested in the things that interest most economists. More... Instead, he studied the riddles of everyday lifefrom cheating to crime to child-rearingand his conclusions turned the conventional wisdom on its head. For instance, he argued that one of the main causes of the crime drop of the 1990s was the legalization of abortion twenty years earlier. (Unwanted children have a greater likelihood of becoming criminals; with so many unwanted children being aborted in the 1970s, the pool of potential criminals had significantly shrunk by the 1990s.) The Times article yielded an unprecedented response, a deluge of interest from thousands of curious, inspired, and occasionally distraught readers. Levitt and Dubner collaborated on a book that gives full play to Levitts most compelling ideas.

Unfinished at the time of Marx'sdeath in 1883 and first published with a preface by FrederickEngels in 1894, the third volume of "Das Kapital" strove to combinethe theories and concepts of the two previous volumes in order toprove conclusively that capitalism is inherently unworkable as apermanent system for society. Here, Marx asserts controversiallythat - regardless of the efforts of individual capitalists, publicauthorities or even generous philanthropists - any market economyis inevitably doomed to endure a series of worsening, explosivecrises leading finally to complete collapse. But he also offers aninspirational and compelling prediction: that the end of capitalismwill culminate, ultimately, in the birth of a far greater form ofsociety.

This unique text uses Microsoft Excel workbooks toinstruct students. In addition to explaining fundamental conceptsin microeconomic theory, readers acquire a great deal ofsophisticated Excel skills and gain the practical mathematicsneeded to succeed in advanced courses. In addition to theinnovative pedagogical approach, the book features explicitlyrepeated use of a single central methodology, the economicapproach. Students learn how economists think and how to think likean economist. With concrete, numerical examples and novel, engagingapplications, interest for readers remains high as live graphs anddata respond to manipulation by the user. Finally, clear writingand active learning are features sure to appeal to modernpractitioners and their students. The website accompanying the textis found at www.depauw.edu/learn/microexcel .

Here at last is the long awaited sequel to the international bestselling phenomenon, Freakonomics. Steven Levitt, the original rogue economist, and Stephen Dubner have been working hard, uncovering the hidden side of even more controversial subjects, from charity to terrorism and prostitution. And with their inimitable style and wit, they will take us on another even more gripping journey of discovery. Superfreakonomics will once again transform the way we look at the world.

In this incisive and controversial expos of the hidden effects of today's free-market capitalism, Edward Luttwak describes in powerful detail how it vastly differs from the controlled capitalism that flourished from 1945 to the 1980s. Turbo-capitalism is private enterprise liberated from government regulation, unchecked by effective trade unions, unfettered by concerns for employees or communities, and unhindered by taxation or investment restrictions. The winners in this free-for-all are getting much richer, while the losers are becoming poorer and are forced by downsizing to take the traditional jobs of the underclass. Led by the United States, closely followed by Britain, turbo-capitalism is spreading fast throughout Europe, Asia, and the rest of the world without the two great forces that check its enormous power in the United States: a powerful Legal system and the stringent rules of American calvinism. Luttwak exposes the major societal upheavals and inequities turbo-capitalism causes and the broad dis

这本畅销经典受到无数人的喜爱，它揭示出古老的“巴比伦寓言”的成功秘诀，被誉为关于节俭、理财和个人财富成功的励志书。 THE MULTI-MILLION COPY BESTSELLING CLASSIC Read by millions, this timeless book holds the key to success-inthe secrets of the ancients. Based on the famous "Babylonianprinciples," it's been hailed as the greatest of all inspirationalworks on the subject of thrift and financial planning. ACHIEVE PERSONAL WEALTH... This celebrated bestseller offers an understanding of-and asolution to-personal money problems.This is the original classicthat reveals the secrets to acquiring money, keeping money, andmaking money earn even more money. Simply put: the originalmoney-management favorite is back!

An essential guide to doing business in Central and SouthAmerica, complete with communication and etiquette tips. This is the essential guide to business etiquette and customs foranyone doing business in Latin America. It features everything thereader needs to know-from getting an appointment to securing acontract. Doing business in Latin America can pose unique,substantial challenges to a non-native, and this book demystifiesthe entire process. From the two-hour "business lunch," at which nobusiness is ever discussed, to handing out business cards the rightway, Diran covers every crucial nuance. He also addresses: ? How things move at a much slower pace than most Americanbusiness processes and deals ? How family truly comes before business, even if it meansskipping an important meeting to take care of a loved one ? The importance of connections and mutual Acquaintances ? How to work with translators and bilingual assistants to getthe job done ? Proper dress, body la

《活动策划全攻略(第2版)》版向读者介绍了活动策划的基本准则，而第二版在版坚实的基础上，又加入了活动策划业内所出现的新领域和新内容，以达到与时俱进的目的。目前的活动策划已经发展成规模庞大的产业，从事这一行业的包括有筹办企业活动、社交活动、非营利活动以及婚庆活动（婚庆策划目前已发展为数十亿美元的大产业，隶属专业活动策划）的专业活动策划公司、会奖公司、会议策划师、自由策划师、公司内部负责营利活动的高管以及企业内部的活动策划人员和非营利活动策划人员。 For event planners, there’s no such thing as a dressrehearsal! Any event you plan and stage is a reflection of your organization’simage — from the initial invitation to onsite operations. Whetheryou’re planning a product launch, conference, sales meeting, anincentive event, or a gala fund-raiser, remember that the magic ofa truly memorable

Written during the winter of 1857-8, the "Grundrisse" wasconsidered by Marx to be the first scientific elaboration ofcommunist theory. A collection of seven notebooks on capital andmoney, it both develops the arguments outlined in the CommunistManifesto (1848) and explores the themes and theses that were todominate his great later work "Capital". Here, for the first time,Marx set out his own version of Hegel's dialectics and developedhis mature views on labour, surplus value and profit, offering manyfresh insights into alienation, automation and the dangers ofcapitalist society. Yet while the theories in "Grundrisse" make ita vital precursor to "Capital", it also provides invaluablede*ions of Marx's wider-ranging philosophy, making it a uniqueinsight into his beliefs and hopes for the foundation of acommunist state.

The truth behind the causes and effects of America's economicdownturn. The Complete Idiot's Guide(r) to the Financial Crisis explainsthe root causes and connects the events and issues with theproblems that have confronted Americans over the course of morethan a year, giving readers an unvarnished, unbiased, and in-depthanalysis of the factors that lead up to the crisis, the majorevents that defined it, and the decisions and ramifications thatresulted from it. ?Interest in the financial crisis continues to build with severalhigh- profile books and an HBO movie due out in 2010, as well asthe success of Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story ?Much of the financial crisis writing to date has been of thebreaking news variety-this book will be one of the first bookspublished after the smoke has cleared to offer a comprehensiveanalysis of what happened and how

During a 1999 protest of the World Trade Organization, Rivoli, an economics professor at Georgetown, looked on as an activist seized the microphone and demanded, "Who made your T-shirt?" Rivoli determined to find out. She interviewed cotton farmers in Texas, factory workers in China, labor champions in the American South and used-clothing vendors in Tanzania. Problems, Rivoli concludes, arise not with the market, but with the suppression of the market. Subsidized farmers, and manufacturers and importers with tax breaks, she argues, succeed because they avoid the risks and competition of unprotected global trade, which in turn forces poorer countries to lower their prices to below subsistence levels in order to compete. Rivoli seems surprised by her own conclusions, and while some chapters lapse into academic prose and tedious de*ions of bureaucratic maneuvering, her writing is at its best when it considers the social dimensions of a global economy, as in chapters on the social networks of African used-clothin

The lively and enthralling tale of three notoriouscounterfeiters offers insights into the makings of the Americanfinancial mind. In Moneymakers , BenTarnoff chronicles the lives of three colorful counterfeiters whoflourished in early America, shedding fresh light on the country'sfinancial coming of age. The speculative ethos that pervades WallStreet today, Tarnoff suggests, has its origins in the craft ofcounterfeiters who first took advantage of a turbulent Americaneconomy. Few nations have as rich a counterfeiting history as the UnitedStates. Since the colonies suffered from a chronic shortage ofprecious metals, they were the first place in the Western world touse easily forged paper bills. And until the national currency wasstandardized in the last half of the nineteenth century, the UnitedStates had a dizzying variety of banknotes, making early America acounterfeiter's paradise. In Moneymakers , Tarnoff recounts how three of America'smost successful counterfeiters-Owen