In This Economy?: How Money and Markets Really Work

by Kyla Scanlon

"Few people can communicate how the economy actually works better than Kyla Scanlon." -Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money

The stuff you really need to know about how the economy works? It's pretty simple. Yes, even if you were bored to tears in economics class, or if you're cross-eyed from reading painfully convoluted-or straight-up misguided-financial commentary. In this particularly disorienting era, Kyla Scanlon is the Tim Harford of the disaffected and disillusioned Gen Z looking for answers.

This is the definitive, approachable guide to the key concepts and mechanics of economics and the most common myths and fallacies to steer clear of. Through Kyla's trademark blend of creative analogies, clever illustrations, refreshingly lucid language-and even quotes from poetry, literature, and philosophy-she answers questions such

- Is our national debt really a threat?
- What is a "mild" recession, exactly?
- What's really happening in the employment market, and how do we improve it for workers?

At a time when experts overcomplicate simple things loudly, choosing to generate smoke rather than clearing the air, In This Economy? shows that understanding the markets-and the systems they operate in-is easier than you think.

Whether you're worried about your mortgage rate, job security, bank account balance, or the health of the broader economy, this concise and witty guide will give you the confidence to make smarter financial decisions-no matter what the headlines say.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Finance, Business, Money, Audiobook, Politics

275 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2024

About the author

Kyla Scanlon is an economic commentator and Bloomberg contributor specializing in human-centric analysis that demystifies the complex. She started her career as a car salesperson before becoming an associate at Capital Group, conducting macroeconomic analysis and modeling investment strategies.

Reviews

[Sarah left GR]

Kyla Scanlon provided a correction to a mistake on p. 6 about exchange rate economics. See https://inthiseconomybookshop.com/pro... for a printable replacement paragraph that you can tape into the book. (Appreciate the self-correction and will absolutely do this to my copy!)

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Occasionally, I'm asked for book recommendations that explain the markets for those who don't follow them closely. It's a challenge to find an introductory book that strikes the right balance of breadth and depth. After reading Kyla Scanlon’s debut, “In This Economy?,” I finally have a solid option to suggest.

For those unfamiliar, Kyla gained popularity on social media with her posts that break down economic and investment topics in an accessible and often humorous way. She is credited with coining the term "vibecession" to describe the gap between the actual state of the economy and people's actual perception of it. In this first book, she shares that “economic literacy for all” has been her mission since high school. I feel like she is making great headway with this debut.

What sets “In This Economy?” apart is its engaging and relatable approach to complex subjects. Kyla’s knack for making economics fun and understandable shines through every page. While this book is not aimed at seasoned investment professionals, it’s a good refresher for those interested. The real value comes from her explaining frequent industry terms and topics without overwhelming a novice to economics.

In my opinion, the book really shines in the final two chapters, where Kyla addresses the problems and opportunities within our current economic system. She offers a thoughtful analysis of the challenges we face today and explores potential solutions, leaving readers with a hopeful outlook and practical ideas for the future.

However, one concern I have is the evergreen nature of the book. Kyla references many current events and trends, which may impact the book's longevity. While these references make the content timely and relevant now, they could date the material quickly and reduce its long-term value.

If you're someone in the industry looking to confirm your understanding of economic concepts or need a great gift for someone curious about how markets work, “In This Economy?” is a book to keep in mind. It’s an enlightening and entertaining journey through the world of economics for all audiences.

[Hank · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little bit ADD, a little bit rural road and a little bit autobahn and extremely good.
This books reads similarly to her Instagram videos which I am a fan of. Introduction of a seemingly simple topic that I think I already know, ramping up to dizzying complexity at the speed of quantum driven trades.

Scanlon thinks and talks so fast it can be hard to keep up and this book is no different. I loved it. A really good survey and take on current economics. One star docked because she goes so fast at times, I wasn't sure which rabbit hole we dove into.

[annie]

dnf at 26%

Hold ran out and I won’t lose sleep over it. I think the authors humor and attitude is much more suited to short videos/tweets. I’m sure it would be life changing if she was ranting all of this to me drunk at a party, but it’s disjointed and awkward written down. Throwing in occasional meme-speak doesn’t automatically make something funny. Also, I’m not exactly *interested* in the economy in the first place, and this certainly didn’t awaken anything in me.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might be the best primer in economics for zoomers. Scanlon does a superb job in explaining complex economic concepts in Gen Z lingo. For example she coins the term vibecession explaining the disconnect between the markets and public sentiment. Scanlon’s social media shorts are very popular and some chapters are like scripts of those so very easy reads though they may not age well due to the focus an last decade and heavy use of current online language. Her people centric progressive policy takes well resonates with me and will even be appreciated by libertarians (who also support a strong state) as Scanlon gives great credit to free markets where credit is due. Recommending it to my daughters: I have some dad jokes to add but so far no demand :)

[CatReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kyla Scanlon is a rare breed (at least in 2025): a Gen Z economist. She's developed platforms dedicated to financial and economic education on TikTok, Instagram, and other social media sites, and in this platform-extending book, 2024's In This Economy?, she distills her knowledge into a very readable and engaging economics book for general audiences (quite a feat, as these books tend to be very dry and jargon-dense in my experience). The book begins with a glowing forward by Morgan Housel (author of the excellent The Psychology of Money), who praises Scanlon for possessing the rare skill set of being able to explain both the technical and emotional aspects of markets. I'd say that's true in my read. My one nitpick is with Scanlon's repeated use of the very Gen Z-sounding term vibecession ("a portmanteau of the words 'vibes' and 'recession'" to define the concept of people perceiving the economy as worse than it actually is, and acting accordingly). It's hardly a new idea and has been around for ages, along with the aphorism that "perception is reality." Still, I'd recommend this book to anyone looking for a readable book on economics with a US focus.

My statistics:
Book 39 for 2025
Book 1965 cumulatively

[Jordan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unlike her twitter handle which is highly funny and entertaining, this book is not. If you know anything about markets or the economy, the book reads like a text book giving high level definitions. It's not entertaining and a slug to read. She knows a lot and has great knowledge but this book is boring.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book if you know a bit about the economy and how it works but you want to learn a little more in depth.

With real life examples and anecdotes this book makes economics easier to learn.

I've become a fan of Kyla Scanlon, she makes great video content on Instagram about the economy.

I would have rated it 5/5 stars but it was a looooot to do with America's economy with very minimal about the rest of the world, granted she is American.

I loved the little doodles and pictures she adds, she makes it cute and fun.

[Jude Mercer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good intro to the economy. Not a ton of new stuff for me. I like the GenZ approach and language along with a look at these systems from that perspective especially later in the book. We need more of these voices in the discourse on important systems like the economy, workforce issues, housing etc.

[Puty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book explains macroeconomics; how economy works, money, fiscal, how everything is related to politics and policy. Everything is explained simply, good for beginner and nice refresher for those who already understand partially. However, the frame is USA, which is good to have an understanding about US dollar position in global economy, but I just skimmed through bits about fiscal and policies. As Indonesian urban middle class, the points about inequality, polarization, and community problems are relatable. Love the main argument that economy is all about people.

[Travis De Jong · Rating 4 out of 5]

I follow Kyla on Instagram and really like her stuff so I may be a little biased with this review... But I thought the book was very good. It was super informative in a non-boring way and I thought she described topics pretty well. I still got confused about somethings but just barely. I liked the illustrations in the book although I do have to say that I thought some of them were a little pointless. Also I don't completely agree with some of her ideas but it didn't take away from the book at all! I hope we get another book from her in the future.

[Isabelle Babson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read! This is like the 21st century Farmers Alamanc but for all aspects of US economics and markets. Scanlon does a great job of taking complicated (and sometimes not so complicated but were made to feel they’re complicated) terms and topics and breaks them down and defines them with easily digestible examples. The economy and its mechanisms (markets, taxes, labor statistics) can be a dry subject to learn about but she made it as engaging as I think one could when giving a nearly 250 year history of US economics.

[Patrick Sherriff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not bad. My proper review is here: https://patricksherriff.com/2024/09/0...

[Stetson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kyla Scanlon is a prominent communicator of economic ideas. She is credited with inventing and popularizing the term "vibecession," a mashup of "vibes" and "recession," to describe the post-COVID19 disjunction between economic indicators and public sentiment about the economy. She's parlayed her success as an influencer into this book deal.

The book's primary pitch is making complex, topical economic concept and phenomena understandable, which she succeed in doing. The work's secondary goal appears to be advocacy for centering people in economic policy making. This agenda is largely consistent with a pro-market left-liberalism or "supply-side progressivism," which is associated with journalistic figures like Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson, and Jerusalem Demses. These policy ideas often overlap or share points of agreement with "state-capacity libertarianism." which is associated with economists and public intellectuals like Tyler Cowan, Alex Tabarrok, Deirdre McCloskey, and Bryan Caplan.

Although most of the content of the work is unobjectionable or is properly qualified, there are certainly claims presented by Scanlon that seem likely to be misleading, facile, or incorrect. For instance, I think she's a bit flippant about monetarism's explanation of inflation, erecting a strawman that she blows done with evidence that could actually be interpreted as favorable for the monetarist model. But for the most part, I don't think it is worthwhile to quibble with such claims that appear in a popular work like this. Books like Nudge or Freakonomics definitely got a number of their claims wrong, but they started conversations and engaged intellectually curious people on high impact ideas and quantitative/scientific thinking about social phenomena.

Additionally, Scanlon also has a moral vision that she advocates for in the book. The vision is again largely aligned with left-liberalism or progressivism while accepting the ubiquity and efficiency of markets and deferring to a liberal traditionalism about economic rights. Many of the ideas are consistent with Karl Polanyi's vision or leveraging markets to achieve social goals and goods. I think there are some interesting aspect of these ideas. There is obviously a role for governments in advanced economies. This includes working to foster markets that function as theory expects them too. This includes ensuring that inevitable inequalities that attend market outcomes don't drive a large number of people into destitution. The missing part of this advocacy in Scanlon's book is a consideration of unintended consequences and the hazards of policy failure. There is a strong historical record to look to on this front that is ignored by this work. All choices come with tradeoffs. I think Scanlon should have foregrounded this reality for her young audience.

In This Economy? is primarily targeted at young readers who are largely new to economic ideas from higher ed. Scanlon wants to validate their known concerns about things like the cost of housing and higher ed, the nature of work, and inequality. She also wants them to be less hostile to capitalism and markets as a whole. If this is what it takes to help disgruntled Millennials and Zoomers to reconcile with capital markets, then I'm for it.

[Tom · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not what it promised to be!

In the introductory section, Kyla Scanlon writes statements like ’When you become an informed economic citizen, you become aware not only of how economic problems and concerns affect you but also how you can benefit from those problems and concerns.’ and ‘Economics is for everyone—so if you’ve felt left behind, or if you’re cross-eyed from reading painfully convoluted (or straight-up misguided) financial commentary—this book is for you. Let’s go.’.

So one would think that this book contains a lot of information on economics that would help you navigate today’s economy & benefit from it.

The first half of the book does describe how the economy works. The description is fairly shallow and some of the explanations are debatable (to phrase it nicely). There is no information though that most people 30 or older wouldn’t know (hopefully).

Occasionally, Kyla mixes the presentation of a subject with her personal opinion (don’t let that confuse you!). The further you get along in the book the more opinion-based it becomes (which has nothing to do with how money & markets really work - check the sub-title).

The reason for my one star rating is that expectations and contents are misaligned. If this book had been categorized as an opinion piece about economics then I would probably have given it 2+ or 3 stars (i.e. an average book or right below average). Now I don’t care about Kyla’s opinions so I wouldn’t have spent hours reading this book if it had been classified properly. Thus my disappointment!

[Noah · Rating 5 out of 5]

In This Economy? is a phenomenal explainer on the ins and outs of money and financial systems and theories in an easily-digestible way. The last few chapters do a great job of addressing the problems facing the American economic landscape and offering a path forward all while reminding that the economy is people. We are the economy and the economy should be better suited to serve us.

[L H · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love how accessible this book is. Sure, there are a few hyper-critics in the reviews who have thrown daggers. No book is perfect, and I think these hyper-critics are not seeing the forest through the trees: more of us need to adopt Kyla's no nonsense approach to writing and sharing knowledge. Thank you for writing this book, Kyla!

[Adam · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is terrible. I can’t believe someone who writes a book on economics can believe so many obvious fallacies. I’m going to reread some Rothbard and Hazlitt to get my brain clear of this nonsense.

[Rianne Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book after I heard the author be interviewed by Ezra Klein and Jon Stewart. I thought if both wanted to promote her book that it would be a book for me, however I found it a little too basic of an introduction to economics. Not to say I learned absolutely nothing, but this may be for a different audience than myself. I know she also coined the term vibecession and gained her popularity through TikTok, but she honestly said vibe way too much here for my liking. Considering I read Abundance, I also didnt care for her solutions chapter to be a summarized reference to Abundance. I did appreciate her take on social media and the commodification of the self and attention to be interesting in the problems chapter, but also think she strayed a lot from economics-related problems there. Overall a decent truly introductory book but I needed more depth and at times more sophisticated writing and examples. The attempts at accessibility through slang and non-academic writing is appreciated, but I cannot read things like “it’s all just a vibe” more than once and feel like it’s a bit of a cop out. The emphasis on a people first economy and consumer sentiment as a factor in how economics function is important though! I look forward to seeing her work develop more overtime.

[Alex Yauk · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I appreciate new books on economics, especially by younger voices, In This Economy? Really misses the mark. The format of the book is one of an expanded glossary - defining various economic terms and ideas in modern language, seemingly intended for a Gen Z audience. The word “vibes” has to be used 200 times.

However, the definitions aren’t the main problem with the book. As readers progress through the book, Scanlon begins to inject more and more commentary to downright policy recommendations that range from under-informed to totally misguided. In my opinion, most of her prognostications are superficial at best and not serious. While I appreciate a new book and a new voice, I would not recommend this to others curious about economics.

[Ferhat Elmas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book ambitiously sets out to explain everything about economics—its history, art, science, future, and more. While it inevitably falls short of such an expansive goal, it remains an excellent starting point for those new to the subject. With a bit of history and a clear breakdown of the key components of the modern economy, she offers an engaging introduction to a complex field.

Although it doesn’t fully satisfy its grand aspirations, this is a promising debut. Her fresh perspective and accessible style make it a fine resource for beginners. I’m excited to see how her future works build on this foundation and tackle even more nuanced aspects of economics.

[Jonny Klar · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, it gave me a great understanding of principles and foundations of the economy. It explains why things are the way that they are, how things should work in theory vs how they play out, and that we the people and our action and sentiment are the economy. Once again it is easy to be pessimistic and nihilistic in today’s society. But this gives me hope or at least something to root for.

[E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

After hearing her on the Ezra Klein show I wanted to read her book. What a great summary of our current economy and financial system.

I had a general business class back in 8th grade and it seems that so much of what they taught me then about how the economy works and personal finance became pretty irrelevant and out-of-date early in my adulthood.

[Chris P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great was to understand the complexity of the principles at work in the economy and why what seems simple really isn’t. I learned a lot and this subject is one that never sinks in my brain. That is a testament to Kyla’s ability to break down these topics. Strong recommend.

[Marc OAR · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mi divulgadora favorita sobre economía en Instagram @kylascan.
Si no tienes idea sobre macroeconomía (como yo), está genial. Es súper joven y mola como habla de la crisis financiera de 2008 (creo que toda mi generación y la anterior está demasiado traumatizada como para verlo con perspectiva.

[Thais Warren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything is VIBEZZZ !!! I did learn some important good stuff though

[Sheila]

A clear, beginner-friendly introduction to economics— especially for a young audience

[Zachary Bertucci · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kyla Scanlon is one of my favorite economist, content creators, and sources of useful information I have had the pleasure of listening to. In her book she explains a broad view of the economy, how systems work and are intertwined, but with an emphasis on "This" Economy AKA 2020-2024. She does a great job with one off stories like Quantitative Easing, SVB, Crypto, the Federal reserve, but also does fantastic work painting a broad picture. She gives a great message, that at the end of the day, economics are weird, because people are weird and strange creatures. Economics is just as much human psychology as it is supply and demand. Its anticipation, sentiment, and above all pure vibes. She is a true chiller, can't wait to hear more from her, she has a great career ahead of her, and I hope she is placed in a position of power one day to help shape our economic future!

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Didn’t learn a whole lot, but it’s a nice overview!

[Lourens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid entry in the “popular introduction to economics” category.

Certainly very online with its lingo; using words like “going long” and “bullish” freely, while also explaining basic concepts. Shows how mainstream finance-speak has gone.

Also nice that it contributes new ideas (vibes) while explaining the current paradigms in good faith.

Very USA centric (which is fine).