Economics for Beginners

Lara Bryan (Author) Lara has loved books since the days of being read bedtime stories by her Irish dad and French mum. At school she set up a secondhand bookshop called Books Change Lives, and went on to study English and Italian at Oxford University. After teaching in Italy and Myanmar, she got her dream job as a writer for Usborne Publishing. From explaining how economics works, to inventing boredom-busting activities, to telling a good dragon yarn, she's enjoyed every minute of the job.

What is economics?
What is an economy?
What do economists study?
How do you do economics?

Chapter 1: Not enough to go around
The things we need to survive, how we choose them, and why there's never enough time: the big reasons why economies exist.

Chapter 2: Markets
Buying and selling and how prices are set - as if by magic.

Chapter 3: Making choices
How do people make choices and why are those choices often unexpected? How can businesses and governments change people's choices? Why would they want to?

Chapter 4: Production, profit and competition
What big choices do businesses face? Why is competition so important? Why do some businesses produce pollution and what should we do about it?

Chapter 5: Economic systems
Is there a set of rules that would make it possible to share everything fairly? Or is it better to have winners and losers? What systems have people tried?

Chapter 6: Macroeconomics
What tools do governments use to measure the economy? What effects do their choices have on individual people and the economy as a whole?

Chapter 7: International trade
Why everyone from around the world benefits from buying and selling each other's products - and why governments sometimes don't like it.

Chapter 8: Big questions (and a few answers)
How the tools of economics help us make sense of everything, from war to famine to saving the planet.

What's next?

Glossary
Index
Acknowledgements