The content:
This book is a compilation of Harford's Q&A pieces from his weekly advise column in The Financial Times.

What I like about Dear Undercover Economist:

- I've studied about some of the research (eg. performance pay for window cleaners) and economists (eg. Gary Becker) that Harford mentions, so this book acted as a nice review for me before the semester started.

- Harford's advises are always embedded in some economic theory that are often hilariously, interestingly, or thought-provokingly matched to the specific situations discussed.

- The questions posed by the readers are sometimes ridiculous, often entertaining, and a few times questions I have at one time wondered about but never knew who to ask.

My qualms with the book:

- Obviously not all questions can be unequivocally answered, especially not from the perspective of the economists. Not only do multiple, contradictory "theories" exist in Economics, but sometimes the research/data is just not available, in which case the general advise is to consult one's own tastes and preferences to decide upon an action.

- Economics as a whole often gets criticized for assuming that all people are rational agents who always act to optimize their well-being. Harford's role as the "economist" of course compels him to make this same unrealistic assumption, with the result that a few times his advise seems a bit unrealistic if not bizarre--that's probably his point though.

- The last section does not have as much entertaining questions and topics as the first two and so was rather boring for me. (My favorite section is the one about love affairs. He definitely gave me a new perspective on the efficient relationship.)

Overall:
Since these Q&A's were originally featured in a newspaper advise column, the book is highly readable and quite entertaining to read. I surprised myself once again by actually finishing through a non-fiction book voluntarily and outside of class. This book is definitely not meant to be taken too seriously, so I would suggest it as an amusing read that economically happens to be informative as well.

Collected from the columns in the British _Financial Times_, economic theory is applied with smartass wit to speed dating, Christmas, bringing bad wine to dinner parties and the cost-benefits ratio of giving out cheap candy at Halloween.

Newspaper column collections in general; even tougher when the material is almost 20 years old. Some of question seem to be designed for humor or lack of intelligence. I didn't mind this but I also didn't find it all that informative.

alot of fun,

gives alot advice to break down everyday issues into calculable value to best solve problems rationally, sometimes to humorous conclusions.

This collection of Tim Hartford's "Dear Economist" advice columns from The Financial Times is just really fun. I love advice columns, and I love economics, so it's a perfect marriage. Hartford's tongue-in-cheek advice uses human-scale problems and concerns, like dating and chores, as a launching point to introduce economics concepts, theories, and research.

I found this book a lot easier to devour, understand, and retain than [b:The Undercover Economist|70420|The Undercover Economist|Tim Harford|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1404122273s/70420.jpg|717900]. The advice-column format means that concepts are connected to things that real people are obsessed with and usually things that I already understand, like cartel strategies for encouraging all the kids in your curve-graded class to slack off. It's basically crowdsourcing for useful metaphors.

One star off because, while some of the advice is inspired and truly useful (like a method for determining who should buy out who when splitting up objects of sentimental value), many of the proposed solutions would be deeply impractical in real life.

I don’t know what I disliked more. Maybe it was the Financial Times reader’s non-problems (eg. I pay someone to clean my car 3 times a week and sometimes it’s not clean?//my son drives fast, if I buy him an expensive car, will he slow down?) or the responses.

Totalmente decepcionante. Tras haber disfrutado mucho con El Economista camuflado, pensé que este libro sería, por así decirlo, más de lo mismo. Más historias interesantes en las que rascando un poco en la superficie de los hechos descubrimos el porqué de las cosas, desde la perspectiva económica. Pero no. El autor ha empaquetado en este libro un montón de columnas del Financial Times en las que NO responde a los lectores. En los cinco o seis párrafos que tiene cada columna sólo da tiempo a citar alguna publicación reciente que se aplica vagamente a la (normalmente interesante) pregunta que hace el lector. Página tras página asistimos a la frustrante lectura de preguntas no respondidas en profundidad. Un vulgar sacacuartos tras el merecido éxito de su primer libro.

Quick and entertaining read.