The Economic Reason: A Piecemeal Guide to Your Inner Homo Economicus

Acknowledgments
About the Book
Contents
About the Author
1: Economic Thinking on the Road (or Thereabouts)
	Policies of the Oscar Wilde Variety
	History of a Policy
	Traffic Citations: Road Safety Regulation or Municipal Revenue Source?
	Used Car for Sale: Good Condition, 94,000 Miles, Low Variance of RPMs
	The New Discrimination on City Buses
	Car MSRP as a Safety Feature
	Honking In Lieu of Auto Insurance
	When Insurance Is Not Fair
	Externalities on the Road
	The Political Economy of Crossing a Road
	Mirage of the Parking Lot
	Similarities Between Road Networks and Information Networks
	The Underdevelopment of Offline Browser Technology
	References
2: Economic Signals
	Is Genetic Information a Substitute for College?
	Signaling Skills with Computer Code Rather than Genetic Code
	When It´s Good to Be Just Another Suit
	Life and Death Signaling
	Culture Signaling
	Solvency Signaling
	Antiquated Signaling?
	Elaborate Weddings and Credible Marriage Signaling
	Counter-Signaling
	Method of Payment Signaling
	A Questionable Lunch Spot
	References
3: Labor Issues
	In Support of Child Labor (the Good Kind)
	Of Labor and Capital
	If You´re Back Here, then Who´s Flying the Plane?
	Robot Scientists
	Economists with Job Principles?
	Labor Supply and Quantity of Labor Supplied in the Immigration Debate
	Perspectives on (Un)employment
	Employment Across Country
	Unemployed Presidents
	Wage-Life Tradeoffs
	The Dynamic Injustice of Income Taxes
	Marx´s Labor Theory of Value and the New Water-Diamond Paradox
	Amazon´s Other Rating System
	A Case for the Celebrity Treatment
	Quarterback Injuries as a Negative Externality of Hard Defensive Play
	An East Coast/West Coast Thing
	A Populist Commissioning
	References
4: Information and Misinformation
	Heterogeneous Preferences and Movie Reviews
	When Probabilities Are Not Enough
	The (Information) Economics of March Madness
	Assessing the Quality of Tournament Selection
	Your Enemies´ Enemy
	Writing Down Your Thoughts
	Evidence of a Clutch Performer?
	Statistics and Consumer Behavior
	References
5: The Things We Value
	Why Don´t You Two Get a Room?
	Oil Reserves
	Ode to Slightly Less Able People
	The Computers Are Watching You
	Other Forms of Workplace Behavior That Can Be Explained with Economic Analysis...
	Prices Make Firms Do Funny Things
	Modern Gift Giving
	A Shutdown Rule for Marriage
	The Economist as Interior Designer
	Accounting for Life and Death
	The Opportunity Cost of a Trade
	Gambling with Tax Dollars
	Ignoring Your Team Like a True Fan
	Nomadic Traders
	Sticking It to the Mother Country (Again)
	References
6: Contest and Conflict in Society
	The Theory of Relative Income
	Conserving and Correcting for Status
	When Two Wrongs Make a Right
	Real-Life Problems
	The Limitations of Journalistic Objectivity
	Blood Conflict
	But Doesn´t a Game Have to Be Fun?
	References
7: More on Politics and Policy
	When It Comes to Political Influence, Nothing Is SacredNot Even Religion
	The Role and Scope of Economic Regulation
	References
8: Restricting the Marketplace
	Price Controls
	A Ceiling on Prices
	Back to the Long Run
	Price Ceilings Away from Home
	A Floor on Prices
	Controlling Monopoly Prices
	References
9: Bringing It All Back Home
	References
Appendix: R Code for Trend World Battle Casualty Rate Plot of Chap. 6