Butterfly Economics: A New General Theory of Social and Economic Behavior

About this book

Why did VHS an inferior video recording technology succeed in the marketplace driving the superior Betamax out of business? Why do big-budget acclaimed movies sometimes flop at the box office while low-budget idiosyncratic films become huge hits? The answers to these questions says Paul Omerod remind us that economics is a science based on the workings of human society as unpredictable an entity as there is. "Conventional economics is mistaken " claimes Omerod "when it views the economy as a machine whose behavior no matter how complicated is ultimately predictable and controllable." In this cogently and elegantly argued analysis of why human beings persist in engaging in behavior that defies time-honored economic theory Omerod also explains why governments and industries throughout the world must completely reconfigure their traditional methods of economic forecasting if they are to succeed and prosper in an increasingly global marketplace.