Economyths: Ten Ways Economics Gets It Wrong

Economic forecasts can look precise while missing how complicated, connected, and changeable real economies are. In Economyths: Ten Ways Economics Gets It Wrong, applied mathematician David Orrell examines the assumptions behind economic models and asks what they leave out.

Organized around ten distinct themes, the book offers a critical look at the ways economics describes markets, risk, people, and prosperity. Its scope reaches from instability and financial extremes to questions of fairness, gender, and happiness.

Ten angles on the economy

The chapter sequence gives the argument a clear shape, examining the economy as anarchic, connected, unstable, extreme, emotional, gendered, unfair, oversized, unhappy, and—finally—good. Together, these perspectives invite readers to consider how economic outcomes are influenced by more than tidy equations or assumptions of rational behavior.

Models, forecasts, and uncertainty

Orrell brings an applied-mathematical perspective to economic forecasting and the limits of risk models. The book considers why economic systems can be difficult to predict and why financial crises challenge the idea of a stable, fully understandable machine.

Economics is about people, too

Chapters on emotion, gender, fairness, and happiness widen the discussion beyond markets and calculations. They encourage readers to think about whose experiences economic frameworks capture, how benefits and risks are distributed, and what a “good economy” might mean.

For curious readers of economics

This book is suited to general readers interested in economic ideas and their real-world consequences, especially those who want to question standard explanations of forecasting, financial instability, and prosperity. Notes, further resources, and an index support readers who want to follow the discussion in greater depth.

Thoughtful and questioning in approach, Economyths offers a route into debates about what economics can explain—and where its assumptions deserve a closer look.