Some years ago, I read Everything I Ever Needed to Know about Economics I Learned from Online Dating" by Paul Oyer (which I reviewed here), and thought that it was really good. Evidently, Oyer has since learned some things about economics other than from online dating, because I just finished reading his 2022 book An Economist Goes to the Game. As the title suggests, this is a book about sports economics, which is an area of interest for me, so I was looking forward to reading it.
Like Oyer's earlier book, this one is well researched. All chapters make multiple references to the research literature on a particular topic. These topics range broadly across the economics of sports, including game theory applied to tennis serves and soccer penalties, ticket scalping, and the economics of hosting the Olympics or building a sports stadium. Those are all topics that I have written about on this blog, so for me, there was little that was new or exciting in those chapters. Even the chapters where I have less familiarity, such as discrimination in sport, and the economics of gambling, did not include many surprising insights.
However, professional and academic economists are not the audience for this book. Oyer writes in a nice style, and includes just enough personal anecdotes to keep the reader engaged in each topic. I really enjoyed the writing, and I'm sure that readers who are less familiar with the topic area will get a lot out of reading this book. That is especially true of sports fans (particularly US sports fans), who may be familiar with many of the specific sports examples, but unfamiliar with how those examples link to economic theory, or just how much economic research has been conducted on sports.
Overall, I recommend this book as a good way to get sports fans to appreciate a bit more economics, as well as for economics fans to appreciate a bit more sports!
No comments:
Post a Comment