Тим Харфорд (Unknown)
THE UNDERCOVER ECONOMIST
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THE
UNDERCOVER
ECONOMIST
Exposing Why The Rich Are Rich,
The Poor Are Poor—
And Why You Can Never Buy
A Decent Used Car!
Tim Harford
2006
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harford, Tim, 1973–
The undercover economist / Tim Harford.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-19518977-3
ISBN-10: 0-19-5189779
1. Economic history, 1990–
2. Economics.
3. Consumer education.
I. Title.
HC59.15.H35 2005 330.9'0511—dc22
2005010297
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To Deborah Harford, Fran Monks, and Stella Harford—family
. . . past, present, and future.
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Acknowledgments
Peter Sinclair got me into economics; Tony Courakis, Simon Cowan, Stan Fischer, Bob Garhart, Paul Klemperer, Brendan McElroy, Elinor Ostrom, Hyun Shin, Bill Sjostrom, and many others helped me along the way. I am grateful to them all.
At Shell, Ged Davis let me work part-time while I produced the first draft of the book. I was flattered by his reluctance and grateful for his support. Other colleagues at Shell were inspira-tional, especially Betty-Sue Flowers, Anupam Khanna, Cho