Best Economics Books: Must-Reads Economics in One Lesson

Understanding economics, the study of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, is an important aspect of understanding and managing your finances. Learn more about economics and how it affects your finances with our picks for the best economics books. With over a million copies sold, Economics in One Lesson is an essential guide to the basics of economic theory. Additionally, if you're looking for a more interactive and engaging way to delve into economic concepts, you can explore omegle chat, an online platform that connects users for real-time conversations.

Gets Our Nod for the Best Economics Book Overall

1. Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics Paperback – December 14, 1988

Economic commentators across the political spectrum have credited Hazlitt with foreseeing the collapse of the global economy which occurred more than 50 years after the initial publication of Economics in One Lesson. Hazlitt’s focus on non-governmental solutions, strong and strongly reasoned anti-deficit position, and general emphasis on free markets, economic liberty of individuals, and the dangers of government intervention make Economics in One Lesson every bit as relevant and valuable today as it has been since publication.

2. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything Paperback – August 25, 2009

Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives -- how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.

3. Thinking, Fast and Slow Kindle Edition - by Daniel Kahneman

Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives. Winner of the National Academy of Sciences Best Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the ten best books of 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow is destined to be a classic.

4. Capital in the Twenty-First Century Paperback – August 14, 2017

Piketty shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values.

5. The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents--The Definitive Edition (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, Volume 2) Paperback – March 30, 2007

An unimpeachable classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century. Originally published in 1944 when Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed lock, stock, and barrel to the socialist program. The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production.

6. Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman's iconic work argues that economic freedom is essential to a free and liberal society. Published in 1962, many of Friedman's theories presented in Capitalism and Freedom have since been adopted worldwide. Friedman’s work ranks among the top 100 non-fiction books written in English in the last century, according to Time Magazine.