EconoPower: How a New Generation of Economists Is Transforming the World
(Wiley & Sons, 2008)
The power of economic thinking can be explained by seven core principles — accountability, cost-benefit analysis, competition, choice, incentives, investment, and welfare.
By understanding and incorporating these principles, better decisions will be made on individual, corporate and government levels. To explain this thesis, author Mark Skousen offers analyses of key economists who have effected significant changes in major domestic and international issues.
In 2006, the Nobel Peace Prize was for the first time awarded to an economist. Once ridiculed as the “dismal” science, economics has now emerged as the “imperial” science that influences every aspect of daily life, from politics to education to religion to Wall Street.
Like an invading army, the science of Adam Smith is overrunning the whole of social science—law, finance, politics, history, sociology, environmentalism, religion, and even sports. In EconoPower, professional economist Mark Skousen shows how this is happening—and how economists are solving the world’s problems on both the individual and national level.
EconoPower offers practical advice on personal financial matters—earning, saving, investing, and retiring—based on the breakthrough contributions of behavioral economists. It reveals exciting discoveries by economists to solve domestic problems, such as road congestion, health care, public education, crime, and other issues high on the public’s list. And it looks at how economists are working successfully on international issues from global warming to religious wars. Looking toward the future, the book also reveals what kind of new dynamic economic philosophy will dominate the new millennium.
Skousen reveals how economists have gone beyond writing abstract academic papers and books and are now applying their theories in the real world by running businesses, consulting companies, and taking positions in government. Economics can change people’s lives and nations’ fortunes for better or for worse, he explains, depending on how closely they adhere to or violate basic principles. To explain this thesis, Skousen offers analyses of key economists who have changed their views over time, an examination of major domestic and international issues, and an explanation of how economists can predict which politicians will be successful.
With EconoPower as their guide, readers will gain a firm understanding of the influence of economics and how it can be used to improve the world we live in.
Table of Contents
Introduction: A Golden Age of Discovery
Part One: Personal Finance: Earning, Saving, Investing, and Retiring
Chapter 1. Economist Discovers a Painless Way to Triple Your Savings Rate: The $90 Billion Opportunity
Chapter 2. Modern Portfolio Theory: Can You Beat the Market?
Chapter 3. Yes You Can Beat the Market…with Less Risk
Chapter 4. High-Return Investing: Lessons from Yale’s Endowment Fund
Chapter 5. How Chile Created a Worker-Capitalist Revolution
Chapter 6. The Call for Social Security Reform
Chapter 7. $4,000 a Month from Social Security?
Chapter 8. How the Private Sector Solved Its Own Pension Crisis
Chapter 9. The Four Sources of Happiness: Is Money One of Them?
Part Two: Economists Enter the Corporate Boardroom
Chapter 10. Improving the Bottom Line with EVA
Chapter 11. How Ludwig von Mises Helped Create the World’s Largest Private Company
Part Three: Solving Domestic Problems
Chapter 12. Look, Ma’am, No Traffic Jams!
Chapter 13. Patient Power: The New Consumer-Driven Medical Plan
Chapter 14. Back to Basics: Competition Enters the Classroom
Chapter 15. Chicago Gun Show
Chapter 16. Economists Catch Auction Fever
Chapter 17. If You Built It Privately…They Will Come: The Economics of Sports Stadiums
Chapter 18. Who Is Henry Spearman? Economics of the Mystery Novel
Part Four: Solving International Problems
Chapter 19. Eco-nomics Debate: Angry Planet or Beautiful World?
Chapter 20. The Population Bomb: Economists Enter the Malthusian Debate
Chapter 21. The Private-Sector Solution to Extreme Poverty
Chapter 22. Poverty and Wealth: India vs. Hong Kong
Chapter 23. How Real Is the Asian Economic Miracle?
Chapter 24. Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?
Chapter 25. The Irish Economic Miracle: Can We Grow Faster?
What They’re Saying About EconoPower
“Imagine, economists solving the world’s problems! Skousen’s breakthrough book bring us up to date on this fascinating development. Visionary economists are showing us creative ways to reduce world poverty, eliminate traffic jams, solve the health care crisis, save more and invest better, make business and labor more productive, improve education, cut crime, and even reduce tensions and establish peace in war-torn regions of the world. Read this book and discover a new brand of economics!”— JOHN MACKEY, CEO, Whole Foods Market
“Mark Skousen is an able, imaginative, and energetic economist.”— MILTON FRIEDMAN, Nobel laureate in economics
“Economics is experiencing a golden age of discovery. Empirical economists are charting the economy and society with a wealth of detailed applied results that truly bear comparison with other epochs of discovery in other sciences.” — DIANE COYLE, author of The Soulful Science: What Economists Really Do and Why It Matters
“Skousen does a wonderful job explaining how a new generation of economists is making a difference. Economics is no longer the dismal science, but an upbeat, universal science fulfilling ever-expanding needs—helping people save and invest better, bringing millions out of poverty, alleviating traffic congestion, making companies more profitable, and helping countries achieve their own economic miracles.”— ARTHUR B. LAFFER, President, Laffer Associates
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