Hak Choi: 56 books

You know that comparative advantage helps explain trade, but when higher production cost from specialization eliminates such advantage, how can you then have trade? Some people support tariff for its triple benefit: it generates government revenue, eliminates trade deficit and raises social...

If your wage rate originally was $100, then there is inflation of 10%, your real wage rate becomes $90. Perhaps, you may ask your boss to give you $110 nominal wage rate, so that your real wage rate remains unchanged. When you have deposited $100 with a bank, and the interest rate was 10%....

You have probably heard of Ricardo’s rent theory, which is a perpendicular line. You may also have heard of the rent gradient function, which is a negative curve. So, which one is the correct rent theory? People may choose to live away from city center because of the lower rent, but why is city...

Economists like to brag about their demand and supply theories. For example, they claim there is a law of demand, with the negative relation between price and quantity. But can they derive such relation? Some use utility or indifference curve to derive one, but from the same basis one can also derive...

This book is about international trade, and shows how fake statistics have blinded, and false theories have fooled, some people to impose tariff and other protectionist measures to hurt themselves and others.

(This book is an abbreviated version of Vol. 10, Unlocking the Trade Door. It contains only the first 7 chapters.) You know that comparative advantage helps explain trade, but when higher production cost from specialization eliminates such advantage, how can you then have trade? Some...

When economists could not solve their problems, they sought excuses in something called market failure. For example, when some old people could not find insurance coverage, economists blamed them for hiding their true and high risk, such that no insurance company dared to accept their premium. Economists...

Tax incidence theory influences not only tax policy, but also environmental protection theory. While most people believe that a tax can be, more or less, shared out, Arnold Harberger took a different view. However, his theory unintentionally still derives another sharing mechanism. So, can workers’...

Auction aims for highest possible price, but economists made two wrong extensions. Some thought the price can be indefinitely increased according to demand; some recommended discount to the successful bidder. The former mistake stems from the misunderstanding that the vertical line is a supply; while...

Abba Lerner was a very prolific economist, and his views were sometimes very thought provoking, but are they also correct? This volume includes three of his theories: The first is about how communist countries can catch up free market economy; The second is about how to improve trade deficit; The...

Economists like to brag about their demand and supply theories. For example, they claim there is a law of supply, with a positive relation between price and quantity. But can they derive such a relation? Some think utility or indifference curve can derive one, but I discover that most of the time...

What is inflation? It means too much money, of course. Is that bad? Some don’t think so. Some even think a mild inflation is healthy. Some think that printing money can substitute taxation, so as not to reduce voting score. They think people are easily cheated, but is that true? Especially, by both...

IO stands for Industrial Organization, and covers anything concerning firm behaviors. This ostensibly massive area of research is nothing but the Imperfect Competition or Monopolistic Competition theory by Joan Robinson and Edward Chamberlin.The theory by Robinson and Chamberlin is about market structure,...

The concept and measure of GDP have always been subject to criticism, so what went wrong? This book reveals many conceptual deficiencies of GDP. To obtain correct measure, economists must revise their concepts. This book also recommends an alternative, hopefully correct, method of measuring income.