Thursday, May 05, 2005

New books on economics and life

Wired magazine has a couple of article from people plugging interesting new books.

Cracking the Real Estate Code
Consider this true story, related by John Donohue, a law professor who in 2001 was teaching at Stanford University: "I was just about to buy a house on the Stanford campus, and the seller's agent kept telling me what a good deal I was getting because the market was about to zoom. As soon as I signed the purchase contract, he asked me if I would need an agent to sell my previous Stanford house. I told him that I would probably try to sell without an agent, and he replied, 'John, that might work under normal conditions, but with the market tanking now, you really need the help of a broker.'"
Sure enough, when real estate brokers sell their own houses, they do things differently from what they would do for you. The book is Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.

This article says that kids are getting smarter by playing video games. The book is here.

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