What is a market? To most people it is a shopping center or an abstract space in which stock prices vary minutely. In reality, a market is something much more fundamental to being human, and it affects not just the price of tomatoes but the boundaries of everything we value.
Reading the newspapers these days, you could be forgiven for thinking that markets are getting ever more efficientand better. But as Tim Sullivan and Ray Fisman argue in this insightful book, that view is far from complete. For one thing, efficiency isn't always a good thingillegal markets are very often more efficient than legal ones, because they are free of concern for laws and human rights. But even more importantly, the chatter about efficiency has obscured a much broader conversation about what kind of economic exchange we actually want. Every regulation, every sticker price, and every sale is part of an ever-changing ecosystemone that affects us as much as we affect it.
By tracing 50 years of economic thought on this subject, Fisman and Sullivan show how markets have evolvedand how we can keep making them better. This leads to fascinating and surprising insights, such as:
- Why your $10,000 used car is likely to sell for $2,000 or less;
- Why you should think twice before buying batteries on Amazon; and
- Why it's essential that healthy people buy medical insurance.
In the end,
The Inner Lives of Markets argues for a new way of thinking about how you spend your moneyit shows that every transaction you make is part of a grand social experiment. We are all guinea pigs running through a lab maze, and the sooner we realize it, the more effectively we can navigate the path we want.
Industry Reviews
"An entertaining overview of economic thought from WWII to the 2000s...witty and energetic." --Publishers Weekly "Bright, accessible...A thoughtful examination of the mechanics of our one-click world." --Kirkus Reviews "This book is essential reading for any non-economist who wants to understand how markets shape our world, including transformational marketplaces like Amazon, Airbnb, and eBay." --Reid Hoffman, chairman of LinkedIn "With great clarity and with many vivid examples, The Inner Lives of Markets explains how the post--World War II worldly philosophers (i.e., economists) have reconceived the workings of our economic system. That reconception takes us far from the black and white of Adam Smith and Karl Marx; yet more interestingly, it is in many shades of gray." --George Akerlof, Nobel Laureate in Economics
