Book review: Economics for Dummies

Since I recently read Econometrics for Dummies (which I reviewed here), it seemed fitting that I follow up with Economics for Dummies, by Sean Flynn. I read the second edition (published in 2011), but I see that there is a third edition now (published in 2019). While my impression was that the econometrics book would be a good companion to a 'traditional' textbook on econometrics, Economics for Dummies is very much a textbook treatment of microeconomics and macroeconomics, which would not be out of place as the required textbook for an undergraduate course in the principles of economics. While Flynn does a good job of keeping things light, as you might expect from a book in Wiley's 'Dummies' series, this is not really a 'pop economics' book.

That disappointed me a little, because I wasn't expecting to read a textbook. Having said that, Flynn does take a refreshing approach to some parts. I really liked the way that he builds up the demand curve from a starting point of marginal utility. I hadn't seen it done that way before. And there were several parts of the macroeconomics section, including a more complete circular flow of income that we often see in textbooks, and a surprisingly thorough discussion of Keynesian economics, that I appreciated. If I was teaching the macroeconomics section of my ECONS101 class, I would certainly be drawing on this book to assist with those aspects.

The book does have several surprising blind spots though. It covers asymmetric information and adverse selection, but never discusses the roles of signalling or screening as solutions to adverse selection problems. It also contains a few errors, including explaining that supply curves slope upwards because of increasing costs (it should be increasing marginal costs), and referring the government spending as part of monetary policy (it is part of fiscal policy). Possibly those bits got fixed up in the more recent edition. I sure hope so.

Overall, I wouldn't strongly recommend this book, but only because there are a generous number of economics principles textbooks around. This book, unfortunately, doesn't really stand out from the crowd. If you had to read it as a textbook, it would be fine, but I wouldn't prefer it over any of the other mainstream options.