Books like Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy

01

Economics in One Lesson

Henry Hazlitt · Economics

Henry Hazlitt wrote Economics in One Lesson in 1946, based on a single insight he credited to the nineteenth-century French economist Frédéric Bastiat: the difference between a good economist and a bad economist is that the good economist considers the effects of a policy on all groups, not just the immediately visible beneficiaries, and over the long run, not just the immediate term.

02

Freakonomics

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner · Economics

Freakonomics is economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner's argument that economics — properly understood as the study of incentives — can explain things that look, on the surface, like they have nothing to do with money.

03

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman · Psychology

Thinking, Fast and Slow is Daniel Kahneman's account of the two cognitive systems that govern human thought.

04

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson · Economics

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that the fundamental difference between rich and poor countries is not geography, culture, or bad luck.

05

The Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith · Economics

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, is Adam Smith's comprehensive account of how modern commercial economies work and what policies promote prosperity.

06

100 to 1 in the Stock Market

Thomas Phelps · Economics

100 to 1 in the Stock Market, published in 1972 by Thomas Phelps, is a study of the conditions under which stocks return one hundred times an investor's original investment — and an argument that such stocks are more common and more identifiable in advance than most investors believe.