So You Want to Know About Economics

129 Pages·2017·5.74 MB·English

by  Roopa Pai

So
You Want
to Know About
Economics
Roopa Pai has written over twenty books for children, covering the gamut
from fantasy to popular science to philosophy. She combines three other loves
—history, young people, and her hometown Bangalore—in her job as a tour
guide with heritage walks and tours company, BangaloreWalks. Her
bestselling The Gita For Children won the Crossword Popular Award for
Children’s Writing in 2016.
Mohit Suneja started his life as an artist from a young age when he drew
portraits and copied action figures from comic books. He followed his passion
and trained at the College of Art, New Delhi where he later went on to teach
as a professor of Visual Communication. He has since worked in many roles
in many industries and created everything from book covers to wall paintings.
Today, Mohit is set to travel at the speed of his imagination trying to create a
better world through his art.

Published in Red Turtle by
Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2017
7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj
New Delhi 110002
Copyright © Roopa Pai 2017
Illustrations copyright © Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd 2017
The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and the facts are as
reported by him/her which have been verified to the extent possible, and the publishers are
not in any way liable for the same.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-81-291-XXX-X
First impression 2017
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be
lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any
form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.
For Dhwani Yagnaraman and Inika Prasad, future economists and overall
rockstars, with many thanks for test-driving this book.
CONTENTS
Introduction
The World Before Economics
What Countries Think About When They Think About Economics (a.k.a
Macroeconomics)
What You And I Think About When We Think About Economics (a.k.a
Microeconomics)
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION
WHY SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT ECONOMICS?
Here’s an idea. Pick up a notebook and pen, walk to the nearest adult, and
with your most earnest face (practice in front of the mirror first), tell them
you are conducting a Very Important survey for a school project. There are
only two questions, so would they please give you five minutes of their time?
If you live with more or less reasonable people, they will most likely agree.
When your unsuspecting victim has settled down, ask her your first
question:
‘What is your opinion of Economics as a subject?’
The person you are interviewing will most likely look distinctly
traumatised by the question. Then she will perhaps respond in one of the
following ways.
▶ ‘Absolutely. The. Most. Mind-numbingly. Boring. Subject. On. Earth!’
▶ ‘You’d have to be a math genius to even begin to understand what the
subject is about. I’m not.’
▶ ‘I passed with decent marks, but if you asked me what Economics taught
me, I don’t quite, erm, know.’
▶ ‘No opinion at all. I’ve never studied it, and never been tempted to. Can I
go now? I have to pee.’
Pushing on ruthlessly, ask the second question:
‘What do you think about when you think about Economics?’
People who have never studied the subject will be wonderfully vague.
‘It’s about money, right? About budgets—how a country divides the money it
has? About GDP and stocks and shares and… uh, stuff to do with the Reserve
Bank and the Finance Minister and taxes… and… oh all right, all right, I
admit it, I don’t think about Economics at all. Please don’t judge me.’
People who have studied the subject, on the other hand, will clear their
throats, sit up straighter, and proceed to throw random words and phrases at
you. ‘It’s about, you know, markets and things. Supply, demand, price
elasticity, externalities, cost-benefit, scarcity, resources, exchange rates,
maximising utility, protectionism, globalisation, and all of them, of course,
ceteris paribus…’ When they finally catch your glassy-eyed expression, they
will turn up their noses and say, ‘See, it’s Very Complicated. Difficult to
explain. You wouldn’t understand it.’
Only a few people—a rare species but they do exist—will smile
beatifically when you ask them these questions. They will lean forward in
their seats, faces animated, eyes sparkling, and tell you that Economics is the
most exciting subject in the world. Over the next half hour, pinning you to
your seat with their fire-and-brimstone eyes, they will tell you why they think
so. This is what they might say:
1. Economics is important because it is really the study of how the world
thinks and works! See, economists are really psychologists in disguise
—they have looked into the deepest, darkest recesses of the human
heart and discovered that all of us are essentially selfish beings at the
core. But if every person is doing selfish things that only benefit him or
her, how come society is doing more or less okay? Economists believe
they have the answer to that Big Question, and they spend their lives
figuring out how to arrange things in the world so that society benefits
while people go on doing their selfish things.
2. Economists are really superheroes fighting for a fairer world! One of
their lives’ Big Challenges is to figure out the best ways to share the
world’s limited resources (like minerals, metals, oil, human labour,
time, energy or money) amongst people who have unlimited needs, in
ways that are as moral and ethical as possible. They constantly obsess
over how to make things somewhat equitable for everyone—the rich
and the poor, developed countries and developing countries, the healthy
and the sick, and the old and the young, so that both sides benefit. They
look at every problem from more than one point of view, and then they
present all the different views, so that people can make the right choice
for themselves.*