Tim Harford
The Logic of Life
6.30pm Tuesday 26 February
$20/$15 Concession
Bookings: Seymour Box Office 02 9351 7940

Tim Harford’s bestselling book The Undercover Economist showed how ordinary economics could explain everyday curiosities, such as the price of a cup of coffee and the traffic jam on the way to the supermarket. The Logic Of Life shows how the new economics of rational choice theory explains much, much more. Drug addicts and teenage muggers can be rational. Suburban sprawl and inner city decay are rational. Endless meetings at the office and the injustices of working life? Rational. Economics explains why your boss is overpaid, whether we should build more prisons, and whether a city like New Orleans can recover from disaster.

I’d recommend The Logic of Life to anyone, including business people, with an interest in why things are the way they are. However, the people who absolutely should read this book are our elected representatives and the policy analysts who serve them.

Blogger Jim Donovan

Tim Harford’s follow-up to his bestselling book The Undercover Economist is a riproaring survey of the application of such revolutionary thinking in the last 60 years. It’s a sparky mix of pure and applied, of history and current affairs, of biography and the geography of knowledge. After a quick introduction to a figure like Johnny Von Neumann, the genius behind games theory, we meet poker champ and Vegas icon Chris Ferguson, who finally put those theories into action at the table. Even a chapter on the workplace – on pay, productivity and incentives – fizzes with insight and variety… Harford is a sickeningly talented young man.

Australian Financial Review

Read an extract of The Logic of Life recently published in The Australian. Read more reviews at Tim Harford's website.

Tim Harford is a columnist for the UK’s Financial Times and Slate, and member of the FT editorial board. Tim’s book, The Undercover Economist, has been published in 21 languages worldwide. His FT column, "The Undercover Economist", reveals the economic ideas behind everyday experiences. He is also the only economist in the world to run a problem page, “Dear Economist”, in which FT readers’ personal problems are answered tongue-in-cheek with the latest economic theory.

Tim Harford will be introduced by Russell Ross, Associate Professor and Chair of Discipline of Economics, University of Sydney.

Tim Harford is in Australia as a guest of the Perth Writers Festival.