[One Sip of a Book] Prices Rise and Asset Values Fall... What Are the Answers from Nobel Economists?

Some sentences encapsulate the entire content of the book itself, while others instantly resonate with the reader's heart, creating a connection with the book. Here, we excerpt and introduce such meaningful sentences from the book. - Editor's note

Prices are rising and asset values are falling, and everyone is struggling just to survive. So, what exactly went wrong and where did it start? To find the answer to this question, this book brings 26 representative economists who have won the Nobel Prize in Economics and their theories to our dining table, explaining them clearly with vivid real-life examples. It conveys the results of the lifelong exploration by renowned economists such as Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, and Daniel Kahneman on the economic principles that move this world.

Samuelson simply defined ‘happiness as possessions divided by desires (Happiness = Possessions / Desires).’ The two factors determining happiness are possessions and desires; even if one has many possessions, if desires are greater, one is unhappy, and if one has fewer possessions but even fewer desires, one becomes happy. p.21

In Hong Kong, for several years now, people who have both a home and a job have been spending their nights moving from one McDonald's to another. People call them ‘McRefugees’ or ‘McSleepers.’ Their numbers are increasing every year. The places where many people sleep at McDonald's are known for rapidly rising housing prices. Due to Hong Kong's poor housing conditions, these people head to McDonald's every night. p.33

The ‘repugnant markets’ Ross talks about are markets that are needed by some but viewed negatively by society, such as kidney sales, same-sex marriage, and drug transactions. Take kidney trading as an example. Except for Iran, all countries worldwide have declared it illegal. People do not oppose transplanting kidneys to sick patients, but they have negative views about buying kidneys with money. Ross believed economists urgently need to study how to facilitate such desperate transactions without problems. p.46

Economists on the Dining Table | Written by Jo Won-kyung | Page2 Books | 392 pages | 18,500 KRW

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