Customer Reviews

Economic Theory (Alfred A. Knopf books in economics)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is very innovative in the sense that some concepts taken for granted are challenged. For instance, even if the consumer behaves irrationally, the demand tends to be negatively inclined, because the resources are scarce. Sometimes, the book gets very difficult, and the reader has to derive some equations. It is very interesting the presentation of the creative theory of allocation of time. The book does not argue General Equilibrium, but it has an extensive and non usual discussion about human capital. Also, note that this is not a subject usually covered in introductory books. Finally, it should be pointed out that some exercises are really hard, although they are not mathematically demanding. I do not recommend this book for beginners, but for those who wish to deepen his knowledge about microeconomics.

Good old price theory, Chicago style. Complements nicely more theoretical approaches like those of Mas-Colell et al. or Reny and Jehle.

This book is the edited transcript of a course in microeconomics given by Prof. Becker in the late 1960s. It was originally published in 1971; in a second edition, some problems were added. The "Second, enlarged" edition, which this is, includes a new introduction by the author, but the text itself remains unchanged (so far as I could tell) from the 1971 edition. (Many of the examples are so dated now - such as the discussion of the 1967 devaluation of sterling.)

For me, this book was incredibly useful for reviewing microeconomic principles and the philosophy of economics in general - as a macroeconomist, it's been useful for refining the way I talk about prices. Being derived from lectures, it alternates between being general and being extremely dense, with very important and complicated concepts expressed in just a few lines. For this reason, the margins of my copy are almost completely full of annotations. Still, it's very well-written, is not condescending in the least, and has a pleasant, almost friendly tone, which is surprising given its origin.