M

adan Sabnavis is an economist who looks for relationships in everyday activities. He seems to enjoy

quantifying these: putting numbers to any economic activity, especially from everyday life. In his new book Eco quirks, Sabnavis attempts to quantify a number of activities in everyday life. And everything comes under his scrutiny: shopping malls, beggary, corruption in traffic police, sales, investments, advertising, religious festivals as well as religion itself, and a range of other areas. The approach initially holds your attention and seems unique. Sabnavis takes on traffic police corruption (diligently drawing up a list for offences and bribes), as well as on an under construction flyover near Mumbai domestic airport (putting a monetary value not only on the impact of the delay, but also on the reduction in the number of lanes, the loss of time and money due to office goers getting delayed due to the badly planned traffic flow near the site) are by far the best. But eventually, it does get to be a bit of a drag. Half way down, one gets tired. Yes, Malcolm Gladwell did a great, and similar, job with Tipping Point and Blink. So did Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner with Freakonomics, and Tim Harford in The Undercover Economist. But after some time, a certain degree of repetitiveness does creep in. Do not get me wrong: Sabnaviss book is not like the large number of ersatz economic plus behaviour books we find in shops nowadays, seemingly written overnight, with very little rigour. He has done a lot of research developing his theories and examining relationships. But it somehow misses the point and pushes in a large number of examples: making it rather dry. And the editing and production qualities really need to be looked at.

This book with its unconventional and appealing take on the serious subject of economics is the first of its kind in the Indian context. It gives the reader a peek into economic rationale behind human behavior and socio-economic phenomena, imputes numerical values to them, and helps him/her make economic sense out of them. It delves into common but less talked about issues like: economics of a residential complex, flyover construction, organized beggary and bribery, places of worship, festivals, and godmen; working of public and pvt. sector banks; consumer psychology and economic laws; publicity games, etc. The book hence gives us a better understanding of the world around us and also expands the limits to which Economics can work. The book covers: Visiting the lesser known economies Try investing your moneywell get you anyway Economics and mind games Corporate quirks Human craving to be known Importance of knowing the price Getting professional Oddness around us Why we will survive