Why the free-market system encourages so much trickery even as it creates so much good Ever since Adam Smith, the central teaching of economics has been that free markets provide us with material well-being, as if by an invisible hand. In Phishing for Phools, Nobel Prize–winning economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller deliver a fundamental challenge to this insight, arguing that markets harm as well as help us. As long as there is profit to be made, sellers will systematically exploit our psychological weaknesses and our ignorance through manipulation and deception. Rather than being essentially benign and always creating the greater good, markets are inherently filled with tricks and traps and will "phish" us as "phools." Phishing for Phools therefore strikes a radically new direction in economics, based on the intuitive idea that markets both give and take away. Akerlof and Shiller bring this idea to life through dozens of stories that show how phishing affects everyone, in almost every walk of life. We spend our money up to the limit, and then worry about how to pay the next month's bills. The financial system soars, then crashes. We are attracted, more than we know, by advertising. Our political system is distorted by money. We pay too much for gym memberships, cars, houses, and credit cards. Drug companies ingeniously market pharmaceuticals that do us little good, and sometimes are downright dangerous. Phishing for Phools explores the central role of manipulation and deception in fascinating detail in each of these areas and many more. It thereby explains a paradox: why, at a time when we are better off than ever before in history, all too many of us are leading lives of quiet desperation. At the same time, the book tells stories of individuals who have stood against economic trickery—and how it can be reduced through greater knowledge, reform, and regulation.

Summary, Analysis and Review of George Akerlof's and et al Phishing for Phools by Instaread Preview: In Phishing for Phools, George Akerlof and Robert Shiller explain the economics of fraud by incorporating fraudulent and unfair transactions into free-market economic models. Conventional economic models that presuppose a free market often assume that customers make decisions based on their long-term interests. They posit that the market moves toward an equilibrium in which every legal opportunity to make money is being utilized. A behavioral model of the free market includes "phishing" transactions, which are in the seller's best interest but not the buyer's. In a market at equilibrium in the real world, sellers have many opportunities to deceive customers. Economic models assume that customers buy things that benefit them, based on solid information and a budget, but a realistic model recognizes that customers also make choices based on more impulsive, short-term, and emotional factors. Wherever customers are vulnerable or short-sighted, a phisher is likely to step in and exploit that vulnerability... PLEASE NOTE: This is a Summary, Analysis & Review of the book and NOT the original book. Inside this Summary, Analysis and Review of George Akerlof's and et al Phishing for Phools by Instaread: � Overview of the Book � Important People � Key Takeaways � Analysis of Key Takeaways About the Author With Instaread, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience. Visit our website at instaread.co.

Summary, Analysis & Review of George Akerlof's and Robert Shiller's Phishing for Phools by Instaread Preview In Phishing for Phools, George Akerlof and Robert Shiller explain the economics of fraud by incorporating fraudulent and unfair transactions into free-market economic models. Conventional economic models that presuppose a free market often assume that customers make decisions based on their long-term interests. They posit that the market moves toward an equilibrium in which every legal opportunity to make money is being utilized. A behavioral model of the free market includes "phishing" transactions, which are in the seller's best interest but not the buyer's. In a market at equilibrium in the real world, sellers have many opportunities to deceive customers. Economic models assume that customers buy things that benefit them, based on solid information and a budget, but a realistic model recognizes that customers also make choices based on more impulsive, short-term, and emotional factors. Wherever customers are vulnerable or short-sighted, a phisher is likely to step in and exploit that vulnerability... PLEASE NOTE: This is a Summary, Analysis & Review of the book and NOT the original book. Inside this Summary, Analysis & Review of George Akerlof's and Robert Shiller's Phishing for Phools by Instaread: Overview of the Book Important People Key Takeaways Analysis of Key Takeaways About the Author With Instaread, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience. Visit our website at instaread.co.

New Seeds of Profit highlights the shortcomings of the admiration Americans have historically shown toward entrepreneurs and business leaders, diagnoses the underlying causes of the dysfunctional condition of American capitalism, and recommends the current trend of greater economic inequality.

Advertising is a company’s major form of communication with the market; it is a component of the IMC system, having a special impact on the addressee, and is a form of persuasive communication affecting consumer behaviour. Advertising may reflect information asymmetry between an advertiser and recipients. This book presents an assessment of the forms and range of consumer behaviour manipulation through information asymmetry in online advertising and explores the possible causes, forms, and effects. The work offers a new approach to the role of advertising in the digital world, especially its forms and impact strategies. The theoretical framework presented is based on issues related to online advertising, information asymmetry, and social manipulation. The book describes the ways in which these areas can be explored, and it presents the results of empirical studies. Empirical research allows for identifying companies’ moral hazard strategies and their consequences – e-consumers’ adverse selection. The research provides an empirical answer to the question: to what extent is advertising a transparent form of communication, and to what extent does it represent the world of manipulation? Based on an interdisciplinary theoretical approach, empirical studies conducted by the authors, and theoretical and managerial implication, the book encourages its readers to find their own answers. Given the interdisciplinary nature of this work, it will be of interest to scholars and researchers within the fields of marketing, media and communication, economics, psychology, sociology, and ethics.

This book presents the Metaeconomics Framework and Dual Interest Theory, which weave the empathy-based moral and ethical dimension back into key economic questions. Metaeconomics addresses the problem of placing too much emphasis on the market or the government, and thus argues that seeing the link between ego and empathy, self- and other-interest, and market and government will lead to a more just, fair, and sustainable polity. The unique Dual Interest Theory proposes that ego-based self-interest and empathy-based other-interest are joint and internal to each person: it maintains the original proposition from Adam Smith that each person maximizes their own-interest, which Metaeconomics makes clear involves balancing the two joint interests, although self-interest is more primal. The book begins with an explanation of how Metaeconomics connects the other kinds of economics. The book then provides a series of applications of Metaeconomics in heated policy issues, such as elections, finance, family, food, health, natural resources, education, taxes, and extreme inequality, among others. Finally, the book concludes that the only way to save capitalism is to bring empathy into both private and public actions and bring about a more humane balance in market and government.

This book contains a collection of peer-reviewed papers presented at the Eleventh Biennial Modern Studies in Property Law Conference held at Queen's University Belfast in April 2016. It is the ninth volume to be published under the name of the Conference. The Conference and its published proceedings have become an established forum for property lawyers from around the world to showcase current research in the discipline. This collection reflects the diversity and contemporary relevance of modern research in property law. Following a foreword from the keynote speaker at the Conference, Queen's alumnus Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore, the chapters address a range of issues, from the nature of land law and property rights, through claims to the home and digital assets, to the growing debate on the nature of public property. Collectively the chapters demonstrate the vibrancy and importance of property law in dealing with modern concerns across the common law world.

This book considers Thorstein Veblen’s central preoccupation with the dark places of business enterprise, an integral part of the old institutional economics. Combining the contributions made by Karl William Kapp and Philip Mirowski, it proposes the systematization of an adjourned institutional theory of social costs of business enterprise useful for the analysis of contemporary crises. The Dark Places of Business Enterprise explores the research potential of the theory of social costs for the analysis of actual business behavior in the current globalized privatization regime. It begins with a detailed outline of Veblen’s critique of business enterprise and market competition before illustrating the methodical enrichment of this approach through Kapp’s work. Finally, it concludes by proposing the integration of the Veblenian-Kappian approach with Mirowski’s theory of markets and business doubt manufacture. The resulting theory of social costs will shed light on the ubiquitous business control of society under the now dominant computer-based technological infrastructure. This interdisciplinary foundation of the theory of social costs, encompassing knowledge from computer science and engineering to natural sciences, provides the tools required to analyze this great transformation.

This book focuses on the changes which big data brings to human's society and personal thinking models. The author uses the concept of “data civilization” to reveal that we have entered a brand-new era on civilization level, which could be found and understood from three levels: human data civilization, commercial data civilization, and personal data civilization. There is no doubt data civilization will inevitably make a profound influence on the subversion and reconstruction of human beings including business, society, and thinking models. The book presents a unique perspective to understand the world which is dominated by data more and more.