---
product_id: 54301892
title: "Economics: The User's Guide: A Pelican Introduction (Pelican Books)"
price: "€ 30.98"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.sk/products/54301892-economics-the-users-guide-a-pelican-introduction-pelican-books
store_origin: SK
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---

# global economic perspectives 4.5-star rating from 1,500+ readers 12 insightful chapters Economics: The User's Guide: A Pelican Introduction (Pelican Books)

**Price:** € 30.98
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## Summary

> 📊 Unlock the economic insights they don’t teach you — stay ahead of the curve!

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Economics: The User's Guide: A Pelican Introduction (Pelican Books)
- **How much does it cost?** € 30.98 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.sk](https://www.desertcart.sk/products/54301892-economics-the-users-guide-a-pelican-introduction-pelican-books)

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## Why This Product

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## Key Features

- • **Accessible Yet Deep:** Clear, concise writing perfect for professionals craving economic literacy.
- • **Curated Further Reading:** Expand your knowledge with expert-recommended resources after each chapter.
- • **Global & Historical Scope:** Understand 250+ years of capitalism’s evolution worldwide.
- • **Think Beyond the Mainstream:** Dive into heterodox economics challenging conventional wisdom.
- • **Master the Economy’s Hidden Rules:** Explore 12 chapters that decode capitalism’s myths and realities.

## Overview

Economics: The User's Guide by Ha-Joon Chang is a bestselling, accessible introduction to economics that challenges mainstream theories. With 12 chapters covering capitalism’s history, inequality, finance, and more, it equips professionals with a broad, critical understanding of global economic systems. Praised for its clarity and depth, this guide is essential for anyone wanting to decode the economic forces shaping our world.

## Description

What is economics? What can - and can't - it explain about the world? Why does it matter? Ha-Joon Chang teaches economics at Cambridge University, and writes a column for the Guardian . The Observer called his book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism , which was a no.1 bestseller, 'a witty and timely debunking of some of the biggest myths surrounding the global economy.' He won the Wassily Leontief Prize for advancing the frontiers of economic thought, and is a vocal critic of the failures of our current economic system.

Review: Too Important To Be Left To Economists - Ha-joon Changs "Economics: The User's Guide" is the first title in the newly resurrected Pelican imprint. Chang himself is best described as a heterodox economist, firmly outside the mainstream where neoclassical economics (not to mention neoliberalism) is the reigning creed. But given the multiple failings of orthodox economics the heterodox Chang with his cheerful style, wide learning and a clear and concise authorial voice make him the ideal candidate for writing an introductory book on economics. He doesn't dissapoint. The book itself is divided into twelve chapters exploring a range of economic issues including asking what exactly economics is, exploring the role of the state, inequality and poverty, work and unemployment, finance and production. Sixty odd pages are devoted a brief history of capitalism, giving the reader a pretty good understanding of two and a half centuries of capitalisms global progress. It's a brilliant introduction for those who have encountered the economy watching the news, through history or political books, and want to find out what this vitaly important aspect of our lives is about. The further reading guides at the end of each chapter are a valuable resource for those whose interests have been aroused. More seasoned students of economics should find the scope of the book (both intellectually and geographically), and it's easy and succinct style ample reward for the effort spent reading. One quibble I have: important terms (privitisation, capital controls, etc) are printed in bold at the point in the text where they are explained, but the index of the defined terms that ought to be there, allowing easy reference to the definitions, is absent. This is a book which along with his 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism and Bad Samaritans I'd strongly recommend reading, not least because (as Chang himself notes) a widespread knowledge of economics is essential to understanding our societies and democraticising our political life.
Review: A good readable book about Political Economics. - This book sets out to be about economics as defined as the study of the economy. As such, it is not an economics textbook that you might use for a University course, since, as Change explains, most of these courses teach only one kind of economics - the neo-classical school, which is based on the obviously false assumption that all human behaviour is rational. (The really interesting social question is how such an absurd belief system (whose deluded practitioners like to style themselves as scientists) has come to dominate academic economics and to be the prevailing dogma that defines economic policy in most countries.) Chang sets out to describe all the different economic schools, and explain how they ask different kinds of economic questions and use different tools to answer them. That's all interesting, but no complete, because he misses out green economics - no mention of the economic value of ecosystems services for example. Since without these we would all be quickly dead, it's not unreasonable to suggest that their true global value is actually rather greater than the world's GDP and by far the most importance source of real wealth. The other reason I've given this book only a 4 star review is the contents list of the Kindle version, which only shows major sections, not chapters let alone subheadings. This makes it rather hard to skip quickly through the book or to get back to re-read an interesting passage. Overall though a very readable account which will help the intelligent lay person make sense of current affairs from an economic perspective.

## Features

- Warning:Not suitable for children over 36 months
- New Store Stock

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | 10,841 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) 52 in Business & Economic History |
| Customer Reviews | 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,516 Reviews |

## Images

![Economics: The User's Guide: A Pelican Introduction (Pelican Books) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/816HXg+uD+L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Too Important To Be Left To Economists
*by S***D on 7 May 2014*

Ha-joon Changs "Economics: The User's Guide" is the first title in the newly resurrected Pelican imprint. Chang himself is best described as a heterodox economist, firmly outside the mainstream where neoclassical economics (not to mention neoliberalism) is the reigning creed. But given the multiple failings of orthodox economics the heterodox Chang with his cheerful style, wide learning and a clear and concise authorial voice make him the ideal candidate for writing an introductory book on economics. He doesn't dissapoint. The book itself is divided into twelve chapters exploring a range of economic issues including asking what exactly economics is, exploring the role of the state, inequality and poverty, work and unemployment, finance and production. Sixty odd pages are devoted a brief history of capitalism, giving the reader a pretty good understanding of two and a half centuries of capitalisms global progress. It's a brilliant introduction for those who have encountered the economy watching the news, through history or political books, and want to find out what this vitaly important aspect of our lives is about. The further reading guides at the end of each chapter are a valuable resource for those whose interests have been aroused. More seasoned students of economics should find the scope of the book (both intellectually and geographically), and it's easy and succinct style ample reward for the effort spent reading. One quibble I have: important terms (privitisation, capital controls, etc) are printed in bold at the point in the text where they are explained, but the index of the defined terms that ought to be there, allowing easy reference to the definitions, is absent. This is a book which along with his 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism and Bad Samaritans I'd strongly recommend reading, not least because (as Chang himself notes) a widespread knowledge of economics is essential to understanding our societies and democraticising our political life.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A good readable book about Political Economics.
*by S***N on 31 August 2015*

This book sets out to be about economics as defined as the study of the economy. As such, it is not an economics textbook that you might use for a University course, since, as Change explains, most of these courses teach only one kind of economics - the neo-classical school, which is based on the obviously false assumption that all human behaviour is rational. (The really interesting social question is how such an absurd belief system (whose deluded practitioners like to style themselves as scientists) has come to dominate academic economics and to be the prevailing dogma that defines economic policy in most countries.) Chang sets out to describe all the different economic schools, and explain how they ask different kinds of economic questions and use different tools to answer them. That's all interesting, but no complete, because he misses out green economics - no mention of the economic value of ecosystems services for example. Since without these we would all be quickly dead, it's not unreasonable to suggest that their true global value is actually rather greater than the world's GDP and by far the most importance source of real wealth. The other reason I've given this book only a 4 star review is the contents list of the Kindle version, which only shows major sections, not chapters let alone subheadings. This makes it rather hard to skip quickly through the book or to get back to re-read an interesting passage. Overall though a very readable account which will help the intelligent lay person make sense of current affairs from an economic perspective.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The lunatics are in control
*by T***S on 14 July 2014*

For me it was the crash of ’86. For others it will be the Great Recession. Whenever economic calamity strikes we reach for a textbook to gain an understanding of what just happened, why, and what can be done about it. Three decades down from the awakening of my own curiosity I find there are more questions than answers, and they’re multiplying all the time. One of the virtues of Ha-Joon Chang’s introduction to Economics is that, unlike many of the books and courses I’ve devoured over the years, it makes clear that there is no silver bullet. Some of the people claiming to have the answers are as clueless as the rest of us, and that applies in spades for the uncritical cheerleaders of the neo-liberal consensus who laid the foundations for the current debacle, a process some have traced to 1979 and the election of Thatcher and, in short order, the 1980 election of Reagan. In fact, one of Chang’s bugbears is the laughable concept of the “trickle-down” effect, made “popular” in the Reagan era, where we put even more money in the hands of the rich in the vain hope that they’ll invest it in something that will eventually provide the rest of us with a job and prosperity. Ha! How’s that one working out for ya? Well, looks like most of the people with the money are still investing in the kinds of complex derivatives that got us here in the first place, not in the capital equipment and R&D that would actually be useful. Much of the content of the book deals with fairly basic economic concepts, clearly positioning it as a primer, but for those wishing to know more the Further Reading sections at the end of each chapter are excellent, referencing some of the books I had in mind when reading. Throughout the text new concepts are printed in bold so they’re easy to find if that’s what you need to do. Chang’s aim is, as I interpret it, to democratise economics, and in that he succeeds reasonably well, arming non-economists with sufficient insight to build an informed opinion and begin to challenge the views of the professionals. One of the more useful things for me was the chapter explaining the different schools of economics, and who fits into which. One of my surprises in this was his placing of Paul Krugman in the neoclassical school, when I expected to find him in the Keynesian. However, Chang makes a good point about the essential conservatism of some of Krugman’s thinking, especially when it comes to his views of low-wage factory jobs in the developing world. I do however feel he emphasises the wrong aspect of Schumpeterian thought, the atrophy of capitalism, and doesn’t make enough of the concept of “creative destruction” (it’s not even in the index). But at least it’s in the text, which is more than can be said for inflation, NAIRU and the Philips Curve, a shame given his treatment of unemployment, the other side of these concepts, is so good. He also misses some very straightforward opportunities to introduce the ideas of agency theory, moral hazard and adverse selection (though he does manage principal-agent problem), and the paradox of thrift. Perhaps he was trying to avoid overloading with jargon, and it’s partly true that economists (and other specialists, for that matter) use jargon to obscure rather than clarify, but it’s at least equally true that the use of specialist language can both shorten a conversation and give it focus. Chang’s use of language is generally straightforward, with clear explanations of the ideas with which he deals. Sometimes he makes reference to popular culture in order to make his point, and this works better in some cases, as in the reference to Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, than others, as when he tells us not only that the Hoover Dam appears in a Superman movie but also that the movie stars Christopher Reeve. And much as I like the idea of an explanation of positional goods channelled through Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory, it becomes overlong when accompanied by a psych evaluation of the character and a rundown of the programme’s dramatis personae. At times like this, attempts to brighten up your subject look too much like an uncle dance in an Ibiza nightclub. Having said all which, he’s right an awful lot more than he’s wrong. Overreliance on a single set of theories and models renders you blinkered; adopting a pluralist approach may not guarantee a correct analysis but may at least make it less wrong. Recent economic thought has concentrated too much on the market at the expense of non-market aspects of the world. Some things – free trade, comparative advantage, foreign direct investment – look great on paper and in static models, but the moment they are injected with a whiff of reality their elegant simplicity looks like starry eyed, rose-tinted idealism or, worse, cynically disingenuous. Apparently “scientific” measures such as the Gini coefficient and GDP, without proper understanding of their underlying strengths and weaknesses, are limited in their ability to tell us anything useful (although maybe it’s a case of their being the worst measures available except for all the others?). And, ultimately, that economics is political, driven by the personal agendas of economists themselves and the people and institutions that finance their work. So back to the beginning. Will it help with an understanding of what went wrong in 2008? Chang very carefully explains what the different types of banks do and are allowed to do. How some of them thought it would be a good idea to take a chance loaning people with poor credit ratings and little or no income enough money to buy themselves a house and bundle up the resultant debts into securities and sell these to other institutions to diversify the risk. How this was supposed to diversify away systemic risk, based on the assessment of some very clever mathematical modelling. And how the securities were ultimately so complicated that the associated contracts ran to hundreds of pages that virtually nobody had the time to read. Admittedly what he doesn’t tell us is what Nate Silver and Felix Martin, amongst others, have told us about the models’ being based on a limited dataset derived mostly from years when economies were booming, but by now most of us have got the idea that the problem was that the lunatics had taken control of the asylum. Read it and weep.

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*Last updated: 2026-08-06*