The Economist Numbers Guide ^{5th Ed.}

Designed as a companion to The Economist Style Guide, the best-selling guide to writing style, The Economist Numbers Guide is invaluable for everyone who wants to be competent, and able to communicate effectively, with numbers.

In addition to general advice on basic numeracy, the guide points out common errors and explains the recognised techniques for solving financial problems, analysing information of any kind and effective decision-making. Over 100 charts, graphs, tables and feature boxes highlight key points. Also included is an A-Z dictionary of terms covering everything from amortisation to zero-sum game.

Whatever your business, The Economist Numbers Guide will prove invaluable.

• Introduction

1. Key Concepts
• Summary
• Ways of looking at data
• Fractions, percentages and proportions
• Index numbers
• Notation
• Probability
• Counting techniques
• Encryption
2. Finance and investment
• Summary
• Interest
• Annuities
• Investment analysis
• Inflation
• Interest rate problems in disguise
• Exchange rates
3. Descriptive measures for interpretation and analysis
• Summary
• Distributions
• Normal distributions
4. Tables and charts
• Summary
• Tables
• Charts
5. Forecasting techniques
• Summary
• Time series
• Trends
• Seasonal adjustment
• Cycles
• Residuals
• Cause and effect
• Identifying relationships with regression analysis
• Forecast monitoring and review
6. Sampling and hypothesis testing
• Summary
• Estimating statistics and parameters
• Confidence
• Other summary measures
• Non-parametric methods
• Hypothesis testing
7. Incorporating judgments into decisions
• Summary
• Uncertainty and risk
• Decision trees
• Perfect information
• The expected value of sample information
• Making the final decision
8. Decision-making in action
• Summary
• Game Strategy
• Queueing
• Stock control
• Markov chains: what happens next?
• Project management
• Simulation
9. Linear programming and networking
• Summary
• Identifying the optimal solution
• Traps and tricks
• Multiple objectives
• Networks

• A-Z

A very good book if you need a refresher of the Business Numeracy you're supposed to have learned in your MBA courses. As a beginners book, it is to short and makes a lot of assumptions on what you already known and understand.

Be warned, though, it is absolutely not a book that you read page by page in order, but a encyclopedia that you may use in your daily life (if you work in the trade).