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Cover of AI Economics: Think Like an Economist (Expanded Edition)
AI Economics: Think Like an Economist (Expanded Edition)
A fully updated 2026 edition of Children, Retirement, and Working Life
Ongoing · Updated every Friday
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Audio in Chinese
Zhan Qingyun: Take the Economist’s Toolkit into This Fascinating World Duan Zhiqiang: Economics Remains One of Our Most Important Ways to Understand the World Leung Man-tao: Bring Your Strangest Questions into Economics Introduction: Don’t Be Afraid—This Is Economics! Question 1: How Can We Stop Being Afraid of Economics? Question 2: What Exactly Is Microeconomics? Bonus: Recommended Introductions to Economics Question 3: What Do Macroeconomists Do? Question 4: Economists Have to Code Too? | Different Economists and Ways of Working Question 5: Did the Americans with Disabilities Act Protect Employment? | Good Intentions, Bad Policy Bonus: Why Do Small Retail Investors So Often Get Exploited? Summer Bonus | ‘A Program That Helps Me Sleep’—What High Praise! Question 6: Can Human Nature Be Trusted During Disaster? | Limits of Economics Question 7: Why Are Some Scholars Uninterested in the Nobel Prize? Question 8: Should Fifty Shades of Grey Be Banned? | Nobel-Winning Research I Question 9: Do Successful People Procrastinate Too? | Nobel-Winning Research II Question 10: Does Universal ‘Helicopter Money’ Reward Idleness? | Radical Policy Bonus: Why Would an Economist Take Their Own Life? Question 11: Can a Subway Map Make You Take the Wrong Train? | Geographic Information and Economics Question 12: Will Artificial Intelligence Replace Human Jobs? Question 13: Can Babies Awaiting Adoption Be Auctioned? | Law and Economics Bonus: Reading Richard Posner Question 14: How Does Economics Understand ‘Voting with Your Feet’? Question 15: Can the Rich Really Lead Everyone Else to Prosperity? Bonus: How Does Economics View Food Waste? Question 16: Is The Plum in the Golden Vase a Work of Economic History? Question 17: Why Do Gamblers Keep Betting as They Lose? | Psychology and Economics Question 18: How Do Temples Accumulate Resources and Capital? | Religion and Economics Question 19: Why Are So Few Nobel Economists Women? | Bias, Discrimination, and Competition Question 20: Can Looser Birth Policy Solve Population Aging? | Natural Experiments Bonus: Are Algorithms Always More Efficient? | The Delivery-Rider Dilemma Question 21: Why Does Human Society Repeatedly Fall into War? | The Malthusian Trap Question 22: How Do Societies Escape the Malthusian Trap? | Technology and Population Question 23: Was Ancient Quality of Life Much Worse? | Capital and Labor Question 24: Can the National College Exam Change Your Class? | Social Mobility Question 25: Why Isn’t Today’s Keyboard Arranged ABCD? | Path Dependence Bonus: What Is Auction Theory? | Nobel Prize I Bonus: How Game Theory Changed Economics and the World | Nobel Prize II Question 26: How Can Growth Continue? | The Malthusian Trap Question 27: What Did Ancient People Use as Money? Question 28: How Did Ancient Societies Respond to Inflation? Question 29: Did Inflows of Silver Harm China? | Precious-Metal Money Question 30: Was Opium the Main Cause of Qing China’s Silver Outflow? Question 31: Silver Is Heavy—How Could It Be Carried? | Traditional Banks Question 32: Where Did Banks Come From? | The Birth of Modern Banking Bonus: Why Begin the Study of Buddhist Statues with Ancient Coins? Bonus: What Was ‘Coolie Money’ in Southeast Asia? Question 33: Why Was the Gold Standard a Golden Shackle? Question 34: How Did the Gold Standard Deepen the Great Depression? Question 35: Replacing Silver Units and Reforming China’s Currency Question 36: Millions in Cash but Not Enough for Rice? | The Notorious Gold Yuan Bonus: After Danke Apartment’s Collapse, What Can Renters Do? Question 37: How Did Salt Become a Traded Commodity? Question 38: How Did Yangzhou Salt Merchants Become So Rich? Question 39: What Did Sugar Have to Do with the Slave Trade? Question 40: How Did Cotton Lead to the Industrial Revolution? Question 41: How Did Tea Spread Around the World? Question 42: How Did China’s Trade System Change? | The Canton Factories Bonus: A Story of Human Exchange—What Is Trade? Question 43: What Did Economics Learn from COVID-19? | Development Economics Question 44: Does Economic Development Make People Healthier? Question 45: Does Global Warming Make Poor Countries Poorer? Question 46: Are You ‘Invisibly Poor’? | Debt and Poverty Bonus: What Are We Reading When We Read the News? | Media Bias Question 47: How Did the Pandemic Affect Low-Income Gig Workers? Question 48: How Do Countries Define Poverty? | Poverty Lines and Relief Question 49: Why Could COVID-19 Cause a Food Crisis? | Famine Bonus: This Week on Wall Street—the GameStop Affair Bonus: What Position Should We Take When Discussing Finance? Bonus: What Happened in the 2008 Financial Crisis? Bonus: How Did We Become Poor and Busy? Question 50: Why Don’t Farmers Want to Farm? | Agriculture and Produce Question 51: Why Might Farmers Oppose Agricultural Markets? | The Green Revolution Question 52: Why Didn’t Higher Yields Raise Farmers’ Income? | Extreme Rural Poverty Question 53: How Hard Is Life for Migrant Workers? | Child Labor and Education Question 54: Why Do Economists Study Mosquito Nets? | Poverty and Disease Question 55: What Can Be Done About Water Scarcity? | Resource Allocation Question 56: Build the Dam or Remove It? | Water Engineering Bonus: What Caused Qing China’s Population Boom? Question 57: How Can Electricity Be Reliable and Safe? | Power Markets Question 58: How Does Air Quality Affect Individuals? | Pollution and Happiness Question 59: Why Do Degrees Lose Value While School-District Homes Gain It? Question 60: Why Treat Education as Selection? | Segmented Labor Markets Bonus: How Did Imperial Examinations Prevent Cheating? Question 61: How Can Corruption Be Curbed? | Public Works Question 62: Will Women’s Status Gradually Improve? | Poverty and Gender Bonus: How Should We Understand the World—and Ourselves? Question 63: Would You Pick Up a Hundred-Yuan Note? | Behavior and Social Norms Question 64: Slacking and Feeling Like a Tool—How Do Employees Treat Employers? | Gift Exchange Question 65: Cooperate or Betray? | Games and the Prisoner’s Dilemma Bonus: Do Humanities Students ‘Ruin the Country’? Question 66: Why Can’t Gamblers Leave the Casino? | Risk Preferences Question 67: Why Do We Do Things We Regret? | Self-Control Question 68: How Can We Overcome Procrastination? | Hyperbolic Discounting Question 69: Why Do We Fear Uncertainty? | Risk and Ambiguity Bonus: Will Population Decline Affect Our Pensions? Question 70: Why Do We Hate Unfairness? | The Ultimatum Game Question 71: How Much Do You Trust a Stranger? | Social Preferences Question 72: Why Is Cooperation So Difficult? | Tragedy of the Commons Question 73: How Can We Prevent the Tragedy of the Commons? | Public-Goods Experiments Question 74: How Can We Discover What People Really Think? | Neuroeconomics Question 75: How Do We Decide Which Group We Belong To? | Social Identity A Note About Our Break Question 76: Why Is Economic Research Like Vaccination? Question 77: Why Does Starbucks Write Your Name on the Cup? | Endowment Effect Question 78: Why Is Intuition Often Unreliable? | Thinking and Decision-Making Question 79: How Can We Be Confident but Not Overconfident? | Attribution Bias Question 80: When Do We Lie? | Deceptive Behavior Question 81: When Do You Want to Leave Work? | Labor Supply Question 82: How Does Environment Shape Behavior? | Trust and Cooperation Question 83: Why Do Microcredit Institutions Often Fail? | Microfinance Question 84: Do Doctors Prescribe Differently to Different People—and Overprescribe? | Field Experiments Bonus: Why Do Economists Rarely Discuss LGBTQ Issues? Bonus: Does the Idea of ‘Bullshit Jobs’ Make Sense? Question 85: Did a Personal Connection Find You Your Job? | Social Networks Question 86: Does Segregation Still Exist? | Networks and Homophily Bonus: Who Is Accountable for the Henan Floods? | Urban Planning Question 87: Does Marrying Within the Same Social Rank Make Sense? | Peer Effects Question 88: When Do You Want to Retire? | Years of Work Question 89: What Should You Major In? | Labor Demand Question 90: Could You Accept a Two-Hour Commute? | Compensating Wage Differentials Question 91: Would You Emigrate? | Integration and Assimilation Question 92: How Can Overseas Earnings Reach China Cheaply? | Remittance Networks Question 93: What Happens to Children When Parents Migrate for Work? Bonus: How Can Academic Research Improve Governance? | Default Effects Question 94: Why Do Two People Marry? | Family Economics Question 95: Marry and Have Children—or Not? | Marriage Premium and Parenthood Cost Question 96: How Should Children Be Raised? | Parenting and Education Question 97: Be the Tail of a Phoenix or Head of a Chicken? | Education and Human Capital Question 98: Where Does Your Income Rank Locally? | The Gini Coefficient Question 99: Would You Keep Working After Winning the Lottery? | Retirement and Health Question 100: Retire in the South or North? | Mental Health and Happiness Bonus: Closing Reflections Bonus: How Do Economists View Marx? Bonus: The 2021 Nobel Prize in Economics Jiang Song × Liang Jie: What Do We Lose When an Ancient City Is Flattened and Rebuilt? Bonus: The 2022 Nobel Prize in Economics Year-End Review: 2022, a Year People Will Remember Liang Jie × Shen Yuan: What Is Music, and What Is a Human Being? Sun Zhe × Liang Jie: Sociology and Economics Make Dialogue Possible | Surface Truths Sun Rui × Liang Jie: Return to the Everyday, Return to the Beginning of Thought | Surface Truths Bonus: The 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics Bonus: The 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics Bonus: The 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics Liang Jie: Humanity Still Hasn’t Figured Out What AI Is 101. Will AI Sustain Economic Growth in China and the World? 102. Will People Who Use AI Every Day Be Replaced—or Earn More? Bonus | Is AI Qualified to Be a Creator? 103. Which Ability Matters Most for Getting Ahead in the AI Age? 104. Are Humanities Graduates Destined for Mass Unemployment in the AI Age? Bonus | If Humans Are Destined to Lose to AI, Does Playing Chess Still Matter? Conversation | Humanities Student, Scholar, Programmer: Do We Already Live in Different AI Ages? 105. Will the Middle Class Gradually Disappear Under AI’s Impact? 106. Can AI Help Solve the Difficulty of Getting Medical Care? 107. As AI Gets Smarter, Do We Still Need to Make Our Own Decisions? Conversation | Liang Jie × Wild Business: If AI Becomes the Perfect Lover, Do We Still Need Intimacy? 108. If AI Knows Everything, Why Do We Still Need University? 109. If AI Can Do Everything, Can Young People Stop Pushing Themselves? | Learning in the Age of AI