Undercover Economist

Finally, after a long break, I am again on track. Traveling, Wedding, again traveling, I guess total distance covered is more than 5000 Km, partly by plane, by bus, by dad's Travera and by train.
So, after a long time, I was able to seize another book and soak myself with all the gyaan I can get. Don't get the wrong idea, I don't read books for gyaan. If that would have been the case, I might have ended up reading my course books. I read books just because I like their smell. Though, cold doesn't leave my company even in summers, most of the time my nose can't figure out rose from chicken.
Enough, back to basics. While passing from Bombay airport, I made a short visit to the book store located in the terminal. The guy in store was friendly and suggested me few good books. As per him, 'Undercover Economist' (by Tim Harford) was a better read than 'Freakonomics'. So, I bought it paying more than 1000 bucks (sigh..).
When I got some time, I settled down on my couch and started ucovering Undercover Economist. Book starts with really catchy scenario of explaining economics of a coffee!! After that author describes other examples of valuation and price comparison. Finally, he concludes that prices are not decided by just what value we are deriving from the product or cost incured in providing you the product, but also your percieved value of that product and scarcity of that product. Though, its a simple logical thing coming out of common sense, however, many times we ignore this fact out of our laziness. All the examples picked out in the book were from day-to-day life, thus, we can easily relate with them. One example on how Superstores keep their prices to trick people in paying more. Price sensitivity and scarcity, become important factor for setting the prices.
In middle part, author talks about stock market and try to frame an explaination of 1929's market crash by explaining the true value concept using price/earning ratio.
In the later parts of book, author talks about national economies, why poor countries like Cameroon shall remain poor and how China became a superpower. Explainations were not entirely satisfactory, however, were based on detailed analysis. Right incentives to right people and easy flow of true information were the two major criterions, used by author to explain these economies.
Overall, book was a great read, written for mass market. It simplifies economics in layman terms.