Can I read Accounting for Tastes on EtoBox?

Accounting for Tastes by Gary Stanley Becker is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is Accounting for Tastes about?

Economists generally accept as a given the old adage that there's no accounting for tastes. Gary Becker disagrees, and in this new collection he confronts the problem of preferences and values: how they are formed and how they affect our behavior. He observes, for example, that adjacent restaurants, which have roughly the same quality of food and similar prices, may differ greatly in the number of customers they are able to attract. Why is one invariably full, while the other has seats to spare? And why is it that the profits of tobacco companies may rise when consumption falls?The answers to these and many other questions about people's consumption patterns, Becker argues, have to do with the way preferences and values are shaped. Although these are central topics of social behavior, they have never been addressed in a systematic and analytical way. Becker applies the tools of modern economic analysis to just this topic, one that economists have traditionally left out of their models for rational choice. As Becker observes, once people's basic needs for food, shelter, and rest are met, their consumption depends very much on how their tastes are formed - on childhood experiences an

Who reads Accounting for Tastes?

Author

Gary Stanley Becker

Publisher

Harvard University, Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies

Published

1996

Language

EN

ISBN

9780674543560

Category

nonfiction

Subjects

Science, Economics, Business