**Author Q &A with Tim Harford**
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**So are you an economic missionary, or is this just something that you love to do?**
It began as something that I love to do--and I think I am now starting to get a sense of it being a mission. People *can* use economics and they *can* use statistics and numbers to get at the truth and there is a real appetite for doing so. This is such a BBC thing to say--there’s almost a public service mission to be fulfilled in educating people about economics. When I wrote *The Undercover Economist* , it was all about my pure enthusiasm for the subject; the book is full of stuff I wanted to say and that is always the thing with the they are always such fun to write.
**Do you think that people these days are generally more economically literate?**
People are now aware of economics for various reasons. There are the problems with the economy--there is always more interest in economics when it is all going wrong.
**Where is the border line in your new book between economics and sociology?**
I don’t draw a border line, and particularly not with the new book. *The Undercover Economist* was basically all the cool economics I could think of and *The Logic of Life* was me investigating a particular part of economics. All of the references in *The Logic of Life* were academic economics papers that I had related--and hopefully made more fun. This new book, *Adapt* , is very different. I have started by asking what is wrong with the world, what needs fixing, how does it work--and if economics can tell us something about that (which it can) then I have used it. And if economics is not the tool that you need--if you need to turn to sociology or engineering or biology or psychology--I have, in fact, turned to all of them in this book. If that’s what you need, then that’s where I have gone. So I have written this book in a different I started with a problem and tried to figure out how to solve it.
**What specific subjects do you tackle?**
To be a bit more specific, the book is about how difficult problems get solved and I look at quick change; the banking crisis; poverty; innovation, as I think there is an innovation slow-down; and the war in Iraq. Also, I look at both problems in business and in everyday life. Those are the big problems that I look at--and my conclusion is that these sorts of problems only ever get solved by trial and error, so when they *are* being solved, they are being solved through experimentation, which is often a bottom-up process. When they are *not* being solved it is because we are not willing to experiment, or to use trial and error.
**Do you think companies will change to be much more experimental, with more decisions placed in the hands of employees?**
I don’t think that is necessarily a trend, and the reason is that the market itself is highly experimental, so if your company isn’t experimental it may just happen to have a really great, successful idea--and that’s fine; if it doesn’t, it will go bankrupt. But that said, it is very interesting to look at the range of companies who have got very into experimentation--they range from the key-cutting chain Timpson’s to Google; you can’t get more different than those two firms, but actually the language is very similar; the recruitment policies are similar; the way the employees get paid is similar.
**The “strap line” of the book is that “Success always starts with failure.” You are a successful author… so what was the failure that set you up for success?**
I was working on a book before *The Undercover Economist* … it was going to be a sort of *Adrian Mole/Bridget Jones’ Diary* -styled fictional comedy, in which the hero was this economist and through the hilarious things that happened to him, all these economic principles would be explained--which is a great idea--but the trouble is that I am not actually *funny*. Another example would be my first job as a management consultant… and I was a terrible management consultant. I crashed out after a few months. Much better that, than to stick with the job for two or three years-- a lot of people say you have got to do that to “show your commitment.” Taking the job was a mistake--why would I need to show my commitment to a mistake? Better to realise you *made* a mistake, stop and do something else, which I did.
**That idea that “failure breeds success” is central to most entrepreneurs. Do you think we need more of it in the UK?**
I think that the real problem is not failure rates in business; the problem is failure rates in politics. We need a much higher failure rate in poli...
Description:
**Author Q &A with Tim Harford** [image] **So are you an economic missionary, or is this just something that you love to do?** It began as something that I love to do--and I think I am now starting to get a sense of it being a mission. People *can* use economics and they *can* use statistics and numbers to get at the truth and there is a real appetite for doing so. This is such a BBC thing to say--there’s almost a public service mission to be fulfilled in educating people about economics. When I wrote *The Undercover Economist* , it was all about my pure enthusiasm for the subject; the book is full of stuff I wanted to say and that is always the thing with the they are always such fun to write. **Do you think that people these days are generally more economically literate?** People are now aware of economics for various reasons. There are the problems with the economy--there is always more interest in economics when it is all going wrong. **Where is the border line in your new book between economics and sociology?** I don’t draw a border line, and particularly not with the new book. *The Undercover Economist* was basically all the cool economics I could think of and *The Logic of Life* was me investigating a particular part of economics. All of the references in *The Logic of Life* were academic economics papers that I had related--and hopefully made more fun. This new book, *Adapt* , is very different. I have started by asking what is wrong with the world, what needs fixing, how does it work--and if economics can tell us something about that (which it can) then I have used it. And if economics is not the tool that you need--if you need to turn to sociology or engineering or biology or psychology--I have, in fact, turned to all of them in this book. If that’s what you need, then that’s where I have gone. So I have written this book in a different I started with a problem and tried to figure out how to solve it. **What specific subjects do you tackle?** To be a bit more specific, the book is about how difficult problems get solved and I look at quick change; the banking crisis; poverty; innovation, as I think there is an innovation slow-down; and the war in Iraq. Also, I look at both problems in business and in everyday life. Those are the big problems that I look at--and my conclusion is that these sorts of problems only ever get solved by trial and error, so when they *are* being solved, they are being solved through experimentation, which is often a bottom-up process. When they are *not* being solved it is because we are not willing to experiment, or to use trial and error. **Do you think companies will change to be much more experimental, with more decisions placed in the hands of employees?** I don’t think that is necessarily a trend, and the reason is that the market itself is highly experimental, so if your company isn’t experimental it may just happen to have a really great, successful idea--and that’s fine; if it doesn’t, it will go bankrupt. But that said, it is very interesting to look at the range of companies who have got very into experimentation--they range from the key-cutting chain Timpson’s to Google; you can’t get more different than those two firms, but actually the language is very similar; the recruitment policies are similar; the way the employees get paid is similar. **The “strap line” of the book is that “Success always starts with failure.” You are a successful author… so what was the failure that set you up for success?** I was working on a book before *The Undercover Economist* … it was going to be a sort of *Adrian Mole/Bridget Jones’ Diary* -styled fictional comedy, in which the hero was this economist and through the hilarious things that happened to him, all these economic principles would be explained--which is a great idea--but the trouble is that I am not actually *funny*. Another example would be my first job as a management consultant… and I was a terrible management consultant. I crashed out after a few months. Much better that, than to stick with the job for two or three years-- a lot of people say you have got to do that to “show your commitment.” Taking the job was a mistake--why would I need to show my commitment to a mistake? Better to realise you *made* a mistake, stop and do something else, which I did. **That idea that “failure breeds success” is central to most entrepreneurs. Do you think we need more of it in the UK?** I think that the real problem is not failure rates in business; the problem is failure rates in politics. We need a much higher failure rate in poli...