The authors of this book want you to live a successful and fulfilling life. We also want you, and every other individual, to live in an environment that allows and encourages everyone to reach their maximum potential. We believe that accomplishing these goals requires both leaders and citizens in general to understand the basic principles of economics. Economic decisions and policies affect each of us in almost every aspect of our daily lives, often in ways we do not fully comprehend. We are continually amazed by the degree of economic illiteracy among politicians and voters. Bad economics is dangerous everywhere, but is especially common, and harmful, in developing and post-communist transition economies. The fundamental purpose of the Common Sense Economics project is to make the key understandings of our profession accessible to all.
