Economics [ハードカバー]

Just bought this textbook and currently I am reading through it. This book is magnificent. It's well written and easy to understand, with detailed diagrams that clearly convey the economic principles the authors are explaining in the surrounding text. Of course diagrams are found in every economics textbook, but the organization and neat presentation of this book does wonders to aid learning, and in my opinion goes beyond other books I have read. Each chapter builds on the previous and really enlightens the reader regarding the most important principles of economic theory (micro and macro).

For those worried about Krugman and whether he has just layered this book full of leftist propaganda, consider this opening paragraph from Chapter 5:

"New York City is a place where you can find almost anything - that is, almost anything, except a taxicab when you need one or a decent apartment at a rent you can afford. You might think that New York's notorious shortages of cabs and apartments are the inevitable price of big-city living. However, they are largely the product of government policies - specifically, of government policies that have, one way or another, tried to prevail over the market forces of supply and demand."

I'll be honest, as a avid reader of Krugman in the NYT, I'd never expected to read such a paragraph in this book. Krugman saying that sometimes the government is the problem? Krugman goes on to explain exactly what policies are to blame for the housing shortage and taxi cab shortage in New York.

The rest of the textbook is full of similar balance. He constantly keeps surprising me and making me think about things that I've never noticed before, such as the housing problem in New York. Who knew such a problem has a simple explanation? (The explanation they give is that the housing shortage is caused by rent control, "a law that prevents landlords from raising rents except when specifically given permission.")

He and Robin really deliver a fair and balanced discussion of economics from Adam Smith up to present day. The book is full of little tidbits of information that Krugman and Wells call "Economics in Action" and "For Inquiring Minds" that usually contain little stories he's simply pulled from his daily reading of the New York Times and other newspapers. He comments on them from an professional economist's point of view and relates them to the current discussion in whatever chapter they appear.

For example, in Chapter 3 under "Economics in Action," Robin writes (as far as I know, Krugman wrote the macro chapters, and Robin wrote the micro):

"Thousands in Mexico City protest rising food prices." So read the headline in the New York Times on February 1, 2007. Specifically, the demonstrators were protesting a sharp rise in the price of tortillas, a staple food of Mexico's poor, which had a gone from 25 cents a pound to between 35 and 45 cents a pound in just a few months.

Why were tortilla prices soaring? It was a classic example of what happens to equilibrium prices when supply falls. Tortillas are made from corn; much of Mexico's corn is imported from the United States, with the price of corn in both countries basically set in the U.S. corn market. And U.S. corn prices were rising rapidly thanks to the surging demand in a new market: the market for ethanol."

It's an interesting little factoid about a real life situation and he (or she) relates it to the subject of the chapter, which was Supply and Demand in that case. The book is littered with different examples on all sorts of topics in every chapter. And notice, once again Krugman could have gone off in a rant against the North American Free Trade agreement, and how the U.S. Government's subsidies to farming was also partly responsible for running Mexico's corn producers out of business by flooding the global market with cheap corn (or something to that effect), but he never does. He keeps it professional and on topic, and it really provides a great learning experience. This is one of those textbooks that is so good a teacher isn't needed to assist in learning process.

So needless to say I'm quite impressed. The few problems in the Second Edition I received from Amazon include various printing mistakes - such as on a few pages there is text printed on top of a graph that shouldn't be there. Not sure if that is just a one time printing error or something that is in all 2nd editions. But it's not enough to recommend staying away from this book. So if you are looking to learn more about economics, and even if you are just a layman and know nothing about economics, you can't go wrong with this book. I guarantee if you have even the slightest interest in this subject then you'll find this a delightful read.

The three most popular books for teaching freshman-level econ in college (and AP Econ in high schools) are, in order, McConnell and Brue, Mankiw, and this one.

It's being talked about as the next big text in the field.

If you read Krugman's column, he leans to the left, sometimes far to the left. But he's not like that in this book, which is firmly centrist.

And I'm no big Krugman fan, but I have to say: this book totally kills McConnell and Brue. Krugman's years of experience as a writer really show through: the text is never boring.

I have this book ("Economics") and have only dipped into it so far - but Amazon doesn't allow me to bypass the star rating so I'll give it 5, just to be positive.

My warning though is that, when I look at the book in Amazon, I am encouraged to buy "Macroeconomics" by the same authors.

The problem is, as far as I can tell from the chapter summaries and sample chapters on the publisher's website [...], "Macroecomics" has the same content as "Economics", except that "Economics" also includes microeconomics (which is another book in itself). (Incidentally, that website has lots of good material on the books, including sample chapters.)

In other words, the contents of "Economics" is very roughly:

1) Introduction to economics, supply & demand and other subjects common to both micro and macroeconomics;
2) Microeconomics;
3) Macroeconomics.

The separate book "Macroeconomics" is parts 1) & 3), and the separate book "Microeconomics" is parts 1) & 2).

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