Reason to Be Happy: Why Logical Thinking is the key to a better life

How to use logic to solve everyday problems and think your way to a better life, by one of the world's leading economists.

Why do our friends have more friends than we do? How do you book the best available seats on a plane? And if jogging for ten minutes adds eight minutes to our life expectancy, should we still go jogging?

The ability to reason is one of our most undervalued skills. In everyday life, the key is to put yourself in the shoes of a clever competitor and think about how they might respond. Whether you are dealing with events on the scale of the Cuban missile crisis or letting go of anger, leading economist Professor Kaushik Basu shows how game theory - the logic of social situations - can help us achieve better outcomes and lasting happiness.

Full of fascinating thought experiments and puzzles, Reason to Be Happy is a paean to the power of rationality. If you want to have a good life and even make the world a better place, you can start by thinking clearly.

Kaushik Basu is Carl Marks Professor of International Studies and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. He was Chief Economist of the World Bank from 2012 to 2016, and was previously Chief Economic Advisor to the government of India.