Summary of Tim Harford's The Undercover Economist Strikes Back

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 Many world leaders have studied economics, but most seem to be happy without a degree.#2 While economics can help you, actually running an economy requires much more than just that.

John Maynard Keynes once argued that the master economist must possess a rare combination of gifts.#3 Until recently, governments have been trying to collect economic data for their own greedy purposes.

But with the Great Depression, governments became serious about measuring the economy for the sake of fixing problems rather than grabbing a piece of the economic pie.#4 The GDP is the total value of all the stuff that is produced in the economy.

It is measured in dollars and is about $70 trillion.

All the smart phones and tablet computers, barrels of oil and kilowatt-hours of wind energy, haircuts and Brazilian waxes, and everything else produced in the entire world are collectively worth about $70 trillion a year.