Most Popular Books by Paul Ormerod

Failure is the most fundamental feature of biological, social and economic systems. Just as species fail—and become extinct—so do companies, brands and public policies. And while failure may be hard to handle, understanding the pervasive nature of failure in the world of human societies and economies is essential for those looking to succeed. Linking economic models with models of biological evolution, Why Most Things Fail identifies the subtle patterns that comprise the apparent disorder of failure and analyzes why failure arises. Throughout the book, author Paul Ormerod exposes the flaws in some of today''s most basic economic assumptions, and examines how professionals in both business and government can help their organizations survive and thrive in a world that has become too complex. Along the way, Ormerod discusses how the Iron Law of Failure applies to business and government, and reveals how you can achieve optimal social and economic outcomes by properly adapting to a world characterized by constant change, evolution and disequilibrium. Filled with in-depth insight, expert advice and illustrative examples, Why Most Things Fail will show you why failure is so common and what you can do to become one of the few who succeed.

This text questions the abilities of the economists who influence political decisions on the economy. Ormerod aims to show that traditional economists view the world in a way which ensures they will never be able to understand it. He suggests that economies are not machines, but dynamic organisms.

Why did VHS, an inferior video recording technology, succeed in the marketplace, driving the superior Betamax out of business? Why do big-budget, acclaimed movies sometimes flop at the box office, while low-budget, idiosyncratic films become huge hits? The answers to these questions, says Paul Omerod, remind us that economics is a science based on the workings of human society, as unpredictable an entity as there is. "Conventional economics is mistaken," claimes Omerod, "when it views the economy as a machine, whose behavior, no matter how complicated, is ultimately predictable and controllable." In this cogently and elegantly argued analysis of why human beings persist in engaging in behavior that defies time-honored economic theory, Omerod also explains why governments and industries throughout the world must completely reconfigure their traditional methods of economic forecasting if they are to succeed and prosper in an increasingly global marketplace.

Economists and economics have been harshly criticised recently. This book accepts many of the criticisms of conventional theory but argues that the fundamental insights of economics are capable of reinterpretation and reinvention to deal with a host of contemporary concerns – social networks, globalisation, pay inequality, climate change, automation and the growth of ‘nudge’ policy amongst many others. The author uses his weekly column in the London business newspaper City A.M. to explain new developments in economic thinking and empirical research to a general audience. This book reproduces many of his most provocative columns with accompanying commentary and full references. The author’s witty and informed analysis of events provides an ideal introduction to important ideas for anybody interested in how the modern economy works.

According to Paul Ormerod, author of the bestselling Butterfly Economics and Why Most Things Fail, the mechanistic viewpoint of conventional economics is drastically limited - because it cannot comprehend the vital nature of networks. As our societies become ever more dynamic and intertwined, network effects on every level are increasingly profound. ''Nudge theory'' is popular, but only part of the answer. To grapple successfully with the current financial crisis, businesses and politicians need to grasp the perils and possibilities of Positive Linking. Our social and economic worlds have been revolutionised by a massive increase in our awareness of the choices, decisions, behaviours and opinions of other people. For the first time in human history, more than half of us live in cities, and this combined with the Internet has transformed communications. Network effects - the fact that a person can and often does decide to change his or her behaviour simply on the basis of copying what others do - pervade the modern world. As Ormerod shows, network effects make conventional approaches to policy, whether in the public or corporate sectors, much more likely to fail. But they open up the possibility of truly ''Positive Linking'' - of more subtle, effective and successful policies, ones which harness our knowledge of network effects and how they work in practice.

This book contains commentaries by Samuel Brittan and Melanie Powell. In Happiness, Economics and Public Policy, Helen Johns and Paul Ormerod analyse the economic research that underlies politicians'' growing preoccupation with measures of ''well-being''. In a lucid and compelling analysis, written for economists and non-economists alike, the authors find that happiness research cannot be used to justify government intervention in the way its proponents suggest.Those who wish governments to take into account measures of well-being when setting policy often point to the fact that increases in income have not led to increases in measured happiness, and thus governments should concentrate on redistribution and improving the quality of life, rather than on allowing people to benefit from economic growth.

"Paul Ormerod shows how crime rates have varied across time and between countries in a way that economic variables and incentives alone cannot explain. In a style, accessible to the non-economist and economist alike, the author shows how new developments in economics can be applied to the analysis of criminal behaviour and used to draw policy conclusions. These new models take into account and illustrate how individuals interact with each other in social networks. As a result, they lead the author to more realistic conclusions and more informed policy recommendations."--BOOK JACKET.

What is wrong with contemporary capitalism? Was the financial crisis of 2008 caused by deep structural problems in the way firms are organised? In Beyond the plc, two of the most creative thinkers in Britain today, Paul Ormerod and Greg Fisher, tackle this problem head on.

Book reviewed in this article: Don Lavoie and Emily Chamlee-Wright, Culture and Enterprise: The Development, Representation and Morality of Business Daniel F. Spulber (ed.), Famous Fables of Economics: Myths of Market Failures John Plender, A Stake in the Future: A Stakeholding Solution Paul Strathern, Dr. Strangelove''s Game: A Brief History of Economic Genius Johan Norberg, In Defence of Global Capitalism Tomas Larsson, The Race to the Top Rodney Atkinson, Fascist Europe Rising: The Repression and Resurgence of Democratic Nations.

The ideas of modern macroeconomics provided the intellectual justification of the economic policies of the last 10 to 15 years. It is these ideas which the financial crisis falsified. The dominant paradigm in macroeconomic theory over the past 30 years has been that of rational agents who form rational expectations about the future and make optimal decisions. The aim of the paper is to study how these agents deal with risk and uncertainty, the source of the problems of the discipline of economics, the economy and the financial crisis. Modern macroeconomics has responsibility for the financial crisis, because imposes its intellectual foundation to a world that operates in situations involving risk that are systematically underestimated and leads to not recognized situations of genuine uncertainty.

There is considerable scope for further privatisation, with the particular aim of sharply reducing public sector claims on national output. However, survey evidence indicates considerable opposition to further privatisations, particularly those taking the form of creating dividend-paying joint stock companies. The paper considers the value of surveys when compared with the economic concept of stable, revealed preferences, and the potential endogeneity of preferences as discussed by Hayek (1949). Consideration is also given to the implications of making concessions to survey opinion by carrying out privatisations under alternative corporate structures.

In 1949, Hayek attributed the dominant position of planning in the West to the role of intellectuals, by which he meant ''professional second-hand dealers in ideas'' such as journalists and commentators. Later in the twentieth century, we saw a similar phenomenon: particular social ideas, although frequently falsified empirically, have come to dominate through the efforts of intellectuals. This paper addresses how a small minority can set so decisively the terms of the debate. Hayek conjectured that this was the case, but did not specify the mechanism by which this can occur. Recent advances in network theory about how ideas can either spread across, or disappear in, a social network of individuals can explain this phenomenon. The implication of Hayek''s insight, validated by modern network theory, is that think tanks should seek to influence ''professional second-hand dealers in ideas'' rather than adopt the naïve democratic principle of trying to persuade individual voters.