IT’S SUNDAY AFTERNOON IN MAY of 2013, and Spring Garden Road in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia, is a busy place. Thousands of people crowd the more than 200 stores as well as the restaurants and coffee shops that line the road, while many more shop in the surrounding nine city blocks that make up the Spring Garden Road area. Most of the shoppers are cheerful—
The scene along Spring Garden Road on this day is, of course, perfectly ordinary—
What can economics say about this “ordinary business”? Quite a lot, it turns out. What we’ll see in this book is that even familiar scenes of economic life pose some very important questions—
How does our economic system work? That is, how does it manage to deliver the goods?
When and why does our economic system go astray, leading people into counterproductive behaviour?
Why are there ups and downs in the economy? That is, why does the economy sometimes have a “bad year”?
Finally, why is the long run mainly a story of ups rather than downs? That is, why has Canada, along with other advanced nations, become so much richer over time?
Let’s take a look at these questions and offer a brief preview of what you will learn in this book.