Economic Fables

Click here to listen to Ariel Rubinstein's interview on Economic Fables.

Part memoir, part crash-course in economic theory, this deeply engaging book by one of the world's foremost economists looks at economic ideas through a personal lens. Together with an introduction to some of the central concepts in modern economic thought, Ariel Rubinstein offers some powerful and entertaining reflections on his childhood, family and career. In doing so, he challenges many of the central tenets of game theory, and sheds light on the role economics can play in society at large. The book is as thought-provoking for seasoned economists as it is enlightening for newcomers to the field.

Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind, describes Economics Fables as a "wonderfully inviting introduction to game theory, rich in personalities, history and sense of place. Ariel Rubinstein is not only a brilliant theorist with a knack for lucid exposition, but a gifted storyteller. Students will find the ideas surprisingly accessible. Aspiring scholars, wondering whether a life of the mind is worth pursuing, will find his personal journey of intellectual discovery thrilling."

Economic Fables
Ariel Rubinstein | May 2012
255 | 5.06” x 7.81” (198mm x 129mm)
ISBN Paperback: 9781906924775
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781906924799
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781906924805
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781906924812
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0020
BIC subject codes: KCA (Economic theory and philosophy)

Chapter 0: Introduction 

Chapter 1: Rational, Irrational

Chapter 2: Game Theory: A Beautiful Mind

Chapter 3: The Jungle Tale and the Market Tale

Chapter 4: Economics, Pragmatics and Seven Traps

Chapter 5: (Sort of) Economic Policy

Bibliographical Notes 

Acknowledgements

Ariel Rubinstein was born in Jerusalem in 1951 and lives in Tel Aviv.  He received his PhD from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1979. Has been a Professor at the Hebrew University and at Princeton. Currently he is a (Emeritus) Professor at Tel Aviv University and a Professor at New York University. He has served as the President of the Econometric Society (2004). He is a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Economic Association, a  Fellow of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He won the Israel Prize (2002), the Nemmers Prize (2004), the EMET prize (2006) and the Rothschild Prize (2010). He has written 105 articles and 6 books: Bargaining and Markets (with M. Osborne) (1990), A Course in Game Theory (with M. Osborne) (1994), Modeling Bounded Rationality (1998), Economics and Language (2000), Lecture Notes in Microeconomics (2005), and, with OBP, Models in Microeconomic Theory (2020). His main fields of research are Economic Theory, Decision Theory, Models of Bounded Rationality and Game Theory. 

Some rights are reserved. This book is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This license allows for copying any part of the work for personal and non-commercial use, providing author attribution is clearly stated.

Ariel Rubinstein. Economic Fables. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2012, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0020

Professor Rubinstein's publications can be accessed and read on his website. Including access to the original Hebrew edition of Economic Fables.

– Sylvia Nasar

Author of A Beautiful Mind and Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius

"This is a great book for economics students, giving a clear introduction to some basic models and just as important to some important advice about how to use models, and how not to use them. The book has a terrific website where readers can try out some of the exercises. I would definitely use this if I were teaching. It is also a very enjoyable and thought-provoking read for practising economists, not to mention for all non-economists trying to pin down why they think economics has failed them during the crisis." This is not a dense, humorless tome of the sort academics compose, but rather a highly readable, even amusing work that combines theoretical diagnoses with personal anecdotes. Here is a pleasant yet satisfying intellectual experience – one with the occasional glimpse into Rubinstein's life to boot – alongside jargon-free explanations of game theory, the author's field of expertise.