THE ECONOMIC COMPASS

Every decision has a direction. The challenge is understanding where it may lead.

The Economic Compass offers a clear and practical introduction to the economic principles behind our everyday choices. Economics is not only about markets, money, or finance. It is also present when we choose between alternatives, decide whether to save or consume, respond to incentives, recognize an opportunity, or consider the consequences of our actions.

Through accessible explanations and familiar examples, Victor Julio Pérez Domínguez introduces essential ideas such as subjective value, opportunity cost, time preference, prices, incentives, specialization, entrepreneurship, innovation, dispersed knowledge, marginal thinking, and common decision-making biases.

Drawing on the work of influential thinkers-including Carl Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Friedrich von Wieser, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Israel Kirzner, Joseph Schumpeter, and Adam Smith-the book translates important economic concepts into useful tools for understanding real-life situations.

Inside, readers will learn how to:

• Identify the alternatives hidden behind every choice
• Recognize opportunity costs and indirect consequences
• Understand how prices and incentives influence behavior
• Appreciate the role of knowledge, specialization, and exchange
• Examine entrepreneurship and innovation as processes of discovery
• Avoid common errors that distort everyday decisions
• Apply an economic way of thinking without reducing life to numbers

Written for general readers, students, professionals, entrepreneurs, and anyone interested in making more thoughtful decisions, The Economic Compass does not require previous knowledge of economics.

This is not a book for memorizing economics. It is a book for learning to think economically.