Armchair Economist

What Hacker News says

1. vouaobrasilAug 2022
   Not sure what the article said since it's locked, but I recommend Steven Landsburg's "The Armchair Economist". It's one of my favourite books of all time.
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2. sbf501Aug 2022
   "The Armchair Economist", Steven Landsburg

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Armchair_Economist

   Extremely approachable book with fantastic examples explaining somewhat complex concepts.

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3. zwayhowderMar 2022
   Not my fields but.

   The Armchair Economist by Steven Landsburg for economics.

   The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman for design in any aspect.

   Closer to my field of organisational performance/psychology.

   The Fearless Organisation by Amy C Edmondson.

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4. roganpFeb 2019
   The Armchair Economist by Steven Landsburg. Explains some pretty deep ideas in economics in an engaging and entertaining way, and has invaded my thinking since. https://www.amazon.com/Armchair-Economist-Economics-Everyday...
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5. linhirJan 2010
   Greg Mankiw wrote years ago on his blog a good list of introductory high level econ books:

   A student emails me asking for a summer reading list. Here are ten very different books I like that are fun enough that you would not be embarrassed (well, not too embarrassed) reading them at the beach:

   Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom

   Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers

   Paul Krugman, Peddling Prosperity

   Steven Landsburg, The Armchair Economist

   P.J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich

   Burton Malkiel, A Random Walk Down Wall Street

   Avinash Dixit and Barry Nalebuff, Thinking Strategically

   Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics

   John McMillan, Reinventing the Bazaar

   William Breit and Barry T. Hirsch, Lives of the Laureates

   I'd also recommend a good textbook, if you're a little more serious.

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6. tslmyDec 2021
   The article should have clarified one more assumption: In a Landsburg's queue, it is compulsory for everyone arriving at the scene to *join the queue immediately*. Otherwise, people would just swarm around the head of the queue, fighting to join the queue as soon as the current customer gets served. In the following discussions, I assume such swarms are successfully prohibited.

   # For those who end up going home

   For those who end up going home, a traditional queue is still more efficient.

   In a Landsburg's queue, if you decided to go home, it must be that there has been too many people joined the queue ("the queue got full"). *Their arrival takes time*. You would have waited for quite some time when you decided to bail out.

   A traditional queue, on the other hand, allows those who end up going home to choose to do so immediately upon arriving at the scene. You arrive at the scene, look at the queue, judge that it would take unacceptably long period of time before you can get served ("it's currently full"), and decide to go home. You never join the queue. You wait for zero seconds.

   # Arranging early arrivals is important

   *Filtering for fans.* In the book _The Armchair Economist: Economics and Everyday Life_, Landsburg himself stated that some businesses would prefer to serve fanatic patrons over mediocre customers. In an ordinary queue, customers can prove their loyalty by *arranging to arrive early*. On the other hand, by attaching the probability of getting served directly to the probabilistic nature of when one arrives, a Landsburg's queue does not allow/support proving patronage with early arrivals.

   *An ordinary queue is an auction.* One of the main arguments that Landsburg proposed is that an ordinary, first-in-first-out queue is inefficient because it is not a market. I disagree to some extent. Let's re-examine the act of arranging early arrivals. By arriving early, you sacrifice the liberty of arranging the day's tasks liberally, often risking postponing a couple of other chores to the next day and/or losing opportunities for spending the morning somewhere else. This *cost of flexibility and opportunity* is a bid[^1] for guarantee/priority of service. Yes, it's still not a market where you trade spots in the queue, but its auction-like nature makes it a much closer implementation than Landsburg's queue.

   [^1]: Well, it's technically a payment, since you don't get your money back should you lose the auction (i.e., decide to bail out from the queue). However, since it's not a game of chance, I can't call it a gamble either.

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