Applied Economics
Thinking Beyond Stage One: Second Edition

I remember reading several articles/essays/excerpts from Thomas Sowell in undergrad. He has the great ability of making economics accessible though his clear writing style and simple presentation of ideas. However, in this particular book, it was just that - the simplicity - that bothered me. The who......more

Thomas Sowell's "Applied Economics" ought to be required reading in every high school and college economics, politics, and English courses. While Mr. Sowell is Ph.D economist and fellow at the Hoover Institute at Stanford, his ideas are useful even to the non-economist. As a society, we tend to be t......more

The title would have you believe this would be a more thorough-going followup to Sowell's fantastic "Basic Economics", with a greater emphasis on practical, real-world problems and proffered solutions evaluated by empirical analyses. That is not the case. "Applied Economics" treads a lot of familiar......more

I know people think economics is a boring topic, and it can be. So can anything if it's not well presented. But one of the reasons I'm an economics junkie is that, when it's presented well, it's also a history lesson. But it's not just what happened but *why* it happened. Because fundamentally econo......more

Great book! Sowell has a unique way of simplifying complex economic concept. The section where he compares Social Security to a pyramid or Ponzi scheme was eye-opening. From insurance rates to agricultural Innovation to the differences between prejudice and bias and so much more.......more