Thanks to Professor Andre Fourcans of l'Essec business school, my French has been getting a bit of a brush up recently. He kindly sent me his recent book, Les secrets de la prosperite, and its prequel, l'Economie expliquee a ma fille. Until I started reading, it wasn't clear to me why he'd lighted on an Anglo-Saxon economist. But it quickly became clear that he and I share a passion for explaining the insights of economics in clear prose, for the benefit of all those souls who have not experienced the same professional formation.

I particularly liked the robust start to the book. There is a well known instance of a kindergarten starting to fine parents who were late picking up their offspring a small amount of money, to discourage a lack of punctuality. The move proved counterproductive, however. Parents lost their sense of guilt about being late because they were being charged; the fine felt like payment for extra service. I think I first came across this example in Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational; it has gained wide currency since. Michael Sandel has also cited it. Anti-economists love this kind of example – they think it disproves conventional economics.

Professor Fourcans dismisses this as nonsense. The kindergarten just got the level of the fine wrong, he says. If they had charged 50 euros instead of three for latecomers, they would have ensured punctuality.

A long section of the book concerns the economic arguments about environmental matters, pollution and climate change. I think this compares favourably with the similar section in Superfreakonomics – it's tryingless hard to grab attention. There is a section on long run growth and institutions. And finally La Fin de la Croissance? This question, after a discussion of the idea of limits to growth (or Enough?), he ends with a slightly tentative negative. As he ends, addressing the daughter who has been the designated audience for his books, the main purpose of economics is to teach enlightened scepticism.

So it's a book after my own heart and clear enough for a non-native speaker to follow. I don't know how well the book has done in France, especially as the logic of market discipline and neoclassical economics do not sit naturally with the French, but I found it an enjoyable read, very suitable for non-economists and students.