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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best Economic textbooks I've read, July 13, 2004
Heyne begins w/ the first principles of economics: how human beings interact on a mass scale, and the positive consequences of those actions, and the negative consequences of interferring w/ voluntary human interaction. He then carries the reader through the traditional economic concepts of Supply and Demand, Specialized Labor, Externalities...all focused through the lens of the "Economic Way of Thinking". Make no mistake--this book is a substantive, philosophical refutation of "Statism". Heyne hits Comparative Advantage, Price Theory, Rule of Law, and Private Property hard (in the affirmative), and if you're for tariffs, regulated prices, arbitrary Gov't intervention, and public property, your views won't be validated. All the more reason for you to read this book, and understand why so many stamp their foot down against politicized economic policies that superficially sound and feel so good. Heyne's lesson is to think on a macro-scale, think about the unintended consequences of mass social change, for that is the Economic Way of Thinking.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very different way of teaching economics - I like it, August 4, 2005
I recently took a course that used this as the main textbook. When I read the book the first time before the course started, I didn't like it at all and was thinking of dropping the course. But after the course started and the professor went over the material in greater detail, I began to understand and appreciate why the authors chose to write the book this way, instead of in the way most conventional textbooks are written -- define and explain new terms or concepts, etc. Like other conventional economic textbooks, the Economic Way of Thinking teaches major concepts in micro and macro economics (such as supply and demand, inflation, GDP, etc.) but teaches them in a much more engaging way -- not just a collection of facts, definition of terms or concepts, etc. The authors pointed out the importance and subtlety in each new term or concept. That gave me additional insight into the material in the book. I also found the exercises at the end of the chapters very useful.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Comparative Advantage in Price Theory, April 24, 2004
Heyne's text explains what it explains well. It is a good Freshman level price theory text. Its strengths are in explaining informational and coordination issues in markets. It does more to explain how the price system works as a communications network than any other text I have seen. It also explains the issues of property rights and transactions costs clearly. When it comes to the public sector, it is vastly better than many other texts. There are other texts, like Gwartney and Stroup, and Ekelund and Tollinson, which are arguably better at explaining the public sector. The biggest weaknesses of this book are in macro and international economics. Its chapters on money are ok, but it explains far too little about trade cycles. It has some good material on growth, but could explain more and in more detail. The chapter on international economics could go further as well. The shortcomings of this book likely reduce its sales. So, it seems that the marginal benefits of such revisions exceed their marginal costs. Heyne is no longer around to revise this book, but the co-authors who took over for him could improve this book greatly for the next edition.
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