Why Are The Prices So Damn High?

I found this book to be approachable as someone with a light (read: I took Microeconomics and that's about it) background in economics. It does a great job of explaining why prices in sectors like education and healthcare are, well, “so damn high.” The book, while short, provides a fairly intuitive explanation of the Baumol effect (or “cost disease” as the authors don't like to call it), substitution effects, and especially the effects of stagnating productivity as it relates to prices, and like any good book, backs up its arguments with data.

Recommend this for anyone who finds themselves asking this question.