

The Economic Naturalist - yagibear
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/why-do-retirees-buy-such-big-houses-and-other-riddles-from-the-economic-naturalist/
I recommend Robert H. Frank's book "The Economic Naturalist" for insight into everyday economics (extracts at <a href="http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/why-do-retirees-buy-such-big-houses-and-other-riddles-from-the-economic-naturalist/" rel="nofollow">http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/why-do-reti...</a> and <a href="http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/more-from-the-economic-naturalist-robert-frank/" rel="nofollow">http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/more-from-t...</a>).   As those URLs suggest, it is of the Freakonomics genre, though IMHO better than the original Freaknomics by being broader and more fundamental.  Ch 3 ("Why equally talented workers often earn different salaries...") resonates with PG's articles about inequality/productivity, though unfortunately I can't find extracts from that chapter online.
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danteembermage
I thought the square milk, round pop question was a cool example of "When
you've got a hammer" Ask an economics class why milk is square and they'll
talk about the marginal cost of refrigerator space and packaging, while the
engineer (from the comments) will first think of carbonated milk and exploding
milk cartons.

I'm reminded of my square-milk-carton-ginger-ale-brewing experiment that my
wife eyed nervously every time she saw it bulging in the back of the fridge.

