The Instant Economist Audiobook By Timothy Taylor cover art

The Instant Economist

Everything You Need to Know About How the Economy Works

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for $0.00
Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.

The Instant Economist

By: Timothy Taylor
Narrated by: Don Hagen
Try for $0.00

$0.00/mo. after 3 months. Offer ends July 31, 2025 at 11:59PM PT. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $25.78

Buy for $25.78

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use, License, and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

The only economics book you will ever need.

Economics isn't just about numbers: It's about politics, psychology, history, and so much more. We are all economists - when we work, save for the future, invest, pay taxes, and buy our groceries. Yet many of us feel lost when the subject arises. Award-winning professor Timothy Taylor tackles all the key questions and hot topics of both microeconomics and macroeconomics, including:

  • Why do budget deficits matter?
  • What exactly does the Federal Reserve do?
  • Does globalization take jobs away from American workers?
  • Why is health insurance so costly?

The Instant Economist offers the knowledge and sophistication to understand the issues - so you can understand and discuss economics on a personal, national, and global level.

©2012 Timothy Taylor (P)2012 Gildan Media Corp Economic Investing & Trading Politics & Government Public Policy Banking Taxation US Economy Capitalism Investing Economic Policy Employment Economic disparity Deflation Tariff Socialism Government Great Recession Export Economic Inequality
All stars
Most relevant  
I am no Economist but this book was a great introduction/refresher to the world of micro and macro economics. Uses good working examples to help understand the concepts. Good book if you're looking for one to just provide a overview of the complexity of the world economy.

Economy so you can understand it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
an easy to understand narrative of basics of economics, a good refresher for those who studied the topic in college and a good introduction to those who are new to the field

A good narrative of foundation of economics

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This was an excellent survey of the basics. Taylor establishes where economists agree, and highlights where they don't (mostly macroeconomics). He really knows how to explain economic thinking. He focuses on the intuitions at the heart of economics. Trade-offs are everywhere and we need to understand what these trade-offs are. He rids the listener of zero-sum thinking, as I think many people who don't understand economics succumb to. Any good citizen should be familiar with the basics of economics and this book is a superb deliverer of those basics. Graphs and complex mathematics are unnecessary for the most part. Taylor's Great Courses lectures on economics are also fantastic. I highly recommend them for anyone seeking to understand the world.

Timothy Taylor is the best

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is not your typical airport economics book where an author applies economics to a few selected issues, but a textbook in audible form. My recollection is that the first 18 chapters were micro and the second half of the book covered macro, trade, etc. Most of the chapters were not particularly long, and there were no obvious cases where I felt the material was wrong, and a few situations where the examples might have been better chosen. For a book of this length, that is probably a pretty good record. In addition, one of the biggest challenges in producing a textbook in audible form is that you can't use graphs or charts to support the explanation. Surprisingly, that was not much of a problem in this text, as most of the explanations of concepts were pretty clear in audible form. I will say that any explanation of supply and demand curves, with movement along the curves vs. shifts in the curves is going to be difficult without seeing a few examples, but I am not sure that is the fault of the author or narrator.

As to the narrator, the pacing was pretty good and the reader did not get in the way of the material. In summary, about as good as a textbook can get in audible form; I find it hard to call it 'a great read'.

Reasonable Review of Key Concepts

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A very useful book in the field of economics. It will definetely help everyday people view economics through a more informed lenses. I definetely liked the last chapter. The reason I didn't award a 5 star is because I believe that the author, while he is trying, ultimately fails to be quite objective. He states clearly that he supports some government intervention and in his initial assumptions he makes clear that he will not consider and analyze "no intervention" economics.

A comprehensive and easily understood overview

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Covers all the bases. Nothing too dense, just the fundamentals.

If you are seeking to fill in gaps in your knowledge and gain a broader economic perspective, look no further.

Performance was excellent and very pleasant on the ears.

Great overview of Economics

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If you want to understand the basics of economics this is the best starter audiobook yet.

The best economic basics book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.