ISBN The Inner Lives of Markets book English Paperback

How People Shape Them And They Shape Us
Think Freakonomics meets The Undercover EconomistThe Inner Lives of Markets is a journey into the mysterious corners of everyday economics. Who buys, who sells, why it matters, when it works, and what to do when it breaks.

What is a market? To most people it is a shopping center or an abstract space in which stock prices vary minutely. In reality, a market is something much more fundamental to being human, and it affects not just the price of tomatoes but the boundaries of everything we value.Reading the newspapers these days, you could be forgiven for thinking that markets are getting ever more efficient - and better. But as Tim Sullivan and Ray Fisman argue in this insightful book, that view is far from complete. For one thing, efficiency isn't always a good thing - illegal markets are very often more efficient than legal ones, because they are free of concern for laws and human rights. But even more importantly, the chatter about efficiency has obscured a much broader conversation about what kind of economic exchange we actually want. Every regulation, every sticker price, and every sale is part of an ever-changing ecosystem - one that affects us as much as we affect it.By tracing 50 years of economic thought on this subject, Fisman and Sullivan show how markets have evolved - and how we can keep making them better. This leads to fascinating and surprising insights, such as:- Why your 10,000 used car is likely to sell for 2,000 or less