How Economists Model the World into Numbers Book

The explanatory ambition of this book is stunning--Harford offers rational actor explanations of changes in sexual activity, racial segregation in cities, professional poker, the number of people in parks at different times of day, the productivity of cities, the industrial revolution, colonization, and even why human beings eventually triumphed over neanderthals!

Along the way you get informative sketches of major 20th century economists and game theorists and their theories.

I was most impressed by the explanation of why small scale rational decisions made by individuals can lead to large-scale problems like extreme racial and class segregation in cities. For discussion of this point, see chapter 5, which begins with Harford trying to decide where to live in Washington, DC, and being told by his minder at the World Bank not to live east of 16th street!

One statistic that stood out: each year a married woman delays having kids, her lifetime earnings go up 10% (chapter 3).

This book is further proof (as if more was needed) that having things explained is incredibly enjoyable, and incomparably better than the refusal to offer explanations in the face of what seems like overwhelming complexity.