Sex, drugs, & economics - Diane Coyle

Author Diane Coyle explores a range of popular issues and uses economic analysis to show why many decisions come down to a question of money or politics. It is rare that an economist has the courage and aptitude to take real world, real-time issues and to lay out the advantages and disadvantages of their current policies. Furthermore, Coyle aims to take these potentially confusing and politically rife issues and cuts them down to size so that they are understandable and straightforward, thereby educating the reader in an entertaining and sophisticated manner. Coyle shows how economics is truly a discipline and a social science that can help us make decisions about the most basic of issues, whether or not to build a train station, to invest tax money in new roads or schools or how to combat world hunger and illegal drugs. Everybody cares about how much tax the government takes, anybody in business wants to figure out how much demand they might have to meet for their services and what wages they'll have to pay, and any working person is concerned about how best to save for tuition fees and retirement pensions.