Trade-Offs: An Introduction to Economic Reasoning and Social Issues

By Harold Winter

Book Overview

When economists wrestle with issues such as unemployment, inflation, or budget deficits, they do so by incorporating an impersonal, detached mode of reasoning. But economists also analyze issues that, to others, typically do not fall within the realm of economic reasoning, such as organ transplants, cigarette addiction, overeating, and product safety. Trade-Offs is an introduction to the economic approach to analyzing these controversial public policy issues. Harold Winter provides readers with the analytical tools needed to identify and understand the trade-offs associated with these topics. By considering both the costs and benefits of potential policy solutions, Winter stresses that real-world decision making is best served by an explicit recognition of as many trade-offs as possible. This new edition incorporates recent developments in policy debates, including the rise of "new paternalism," or policies designed to protect people from themselves; alternative ways to increase the supply of organs available for transplant; and economic approaches to controlling infectious disease. Intellectually stimulating yet accessible and entertaining, Trade-Offs will be appreciated by students of economics, public policy, health administration, political science, and law, as well as by anyone who follows current social policy debates.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226924491
• ISBN13: 9780226924496
• Release Date: February 2013
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Short and sweet.

This no non-sense, straight to the point book demonstrates clearly that no solutions exist to any social situation. There are only trade-offs. I especially liked his argument that there may be too little smoking in the world. Winter clearly understands that pleasure, life, and many other things do indeed have a dollar value associated with them. Ignoring this exposes you to a variety of logical flaws, leading to false or misleading solutions.

Excellent.

Excellent, EXCELLENT book. Though, I beg to ask, why is it so short? I started recommending this to students. And then told them not to waste their time with "Freakonomics".

Great text

For the past 6 months or so, I have been frantically searching for a text I can use for a second year policy econ course for non-majors. I'd found nothing that covered the range of topics I wanted or at the appropriate level. This text is perfect; I wish I'd found it before the uni bookstore's cut off date! Each chapter would have to be supplemented with additional readings to provide the appropriate depth, but the coverage is almost perfect for the kind of course I'm teaching. Strongly recommended.

Good stuff - and a good read

I like it! Economics made easy and fun, a la "Freakonomics."

Infinitely Better than Freakonomics

I love the popular writings of Steven Landsburg, Gary Becker and Walter Williams. This book is in the same vein, bringing jargon-laden economics down to a level of prose that everyone can understand and enjoy. (Most of the jargon and formal modeling in AER articles and econ textbooks is entirely useless.) On top of this, Winter has wit. How many econ professors actually have wit? I've done a study -- it's 5 and Harold Winter can happily put himself in that class now. And this book vastly outshines "Freakonomics," which is nothing more than a book on measurement (not economic theory as it portends) and a incessant celebration of its authors. My only critique of "Trade-Offs" is that I wish it were longer. I anxiously await "Trade-Offs II: Revenge of the Neoclassicists."