Having taught Economics, I am aware that the subject is quite often described as dry, boring, sleep inducing and with other such non flattering adjectives.  While I shouldn’t admit it but there were times, when I too as a student found the going tough! It wasn’t that I found the concepts uninteresting, on the contrary I thought they were some of the most interesting ideas I have come across with a lot of relevance to my future well being. But how those concepts were handled when explained to first time economics students left a lot to be desired!

Until I came across a book called Economics: In terms of  the good, the bad and the economist- by Matt McGhee, an IB Economics teacher from Sweden. This was one economics textbook I really enjoyed and I believe it is a great introductory text to economics for even undergrad students. Since then I have always been on the look out for books which explain the ‘dismal science’ by making it interesting and applying it to our daily lives.

And I have come across books like Freakonomics – and part 2, The Undercover Economist, The Price of Everything and many others. But while these books are all good, they do not build a solid understanding of how an economy works!

And so I kept searching…..

For my extended weekend reading I happened to pick up ‘How and economy grows and why it crashes’ by Peter and Andrew Schiff .

And boy, am I glad I did!

I think this book should be given to every economics student in Class 11 – no, Class 9 – before their head is filled with economic gibberish that most economics textbooks are brimming with!

Using a story (which they inherited from their dad- Irwin Schiff), the Schiffs manage to put together what I consider an incredible explanation of how an economy works that even a layman with no economic back ground will understand.

They cover all important topics like specialisation, saving, investment, capital formation, production and consumption, and they keep adding layers without once loosing sight of the key principles on which economies are built! By adding the needed complexity to their model, such as that exists in a real economy with trade, government, credit, interest rates, inflation, growth, etc they are able to demonstrate through a story (which is why I loved it!), what few economics teachers, professors and authors have been able to do through their many classes and reams of pages!

The story format of this book is what I believe is the killer punch. The story will enable you to remember the key economic principles and it provide a mental model which will help decipher and expose the nonsense that very often passes for brilliance in economics these days! As usual, stories captivate,  illuminate and linger longer than any other pedagogical tool!

And the Schiffs have used it masterfully!