Customer Reviews

Macroeconomic Policy: Demystifying Monetary and Fiscal Policy

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am an employee at Merrill Lynch (I have my series 7,63,65,24,4), and currently studying for the CFA Level 1 Exam, however, my background is in Biochemistry and Biology so it is pretty obvious that I was behind my peers relative to our formal academic background. So, I felt that I needed a book that that could clearly communicate the macroeconomic policies that govern this country. However, because the CFA level 1 is a difficult exam, I could not afford to have the author dilute the information, or overly simplify the information. Fortunately, the literature provided in this book not only conveyed the information better, and clearer than, the actual CFA preparatory classes that I had been taken, but it was such a fun book to read. The beauty of this book is that it provides actual contemporay, and historic global examples to supplement the literature. Prior to reading this book, I had read other books on macroeconomic policy that were so dry that I could not even finish the chapters (and I had read some pretty dry books during my days as an undergrade pursuing my double major in Biotechnology and Biology), but this book was the type of book that I did not want to put down from the moment I started reading it. Furthermore, this book also assisted me in getting a better understanding of the markets (equities and real estate) for future investments as well. After reading this book, I am such a sharper investor, I can now dissect the nonsense from the valid information that is being promoted on TV and in magazines. I highly recommend this book for everyone who is interested in getting a deeper understanding of how our government works, and how our economy works relative to the rest of the world.

Without taking any sides in the often heated battle over competing macroeconomic models, Prof. Langdana presents a well-written, easy to understand dissertation on the driving forces behind macroeconomic policy. Appropriate for readers of all types, from economics students and practitioners to business people who have a vested interest in the performance of world economies. There is useful discussion and analysis in every chapter.

All bases are covered here, from Classical to Keynesian to Supply-side. Real life macroeconomic events such as the Great Depression are explored and analyzed through the lenses of the various models. The use of plain English and clear diagrams makes sophisticated macropolicy theories easy to digest.

Prof. Langdana's imaginative prose brings the theoretical alive, and his clever use of simulated "news articles" to enhance the text and provide real world relevance to the discussions is a superb educational technique. To sum this book up in a single word - HUGE!

This book truly does demystify macroeconomics. Professor Langdana makes it accessible and easy to see the results of monetary and fiscal policy. I've never studied economics and I know I have a much better understanding of the subject thanks to him and his book!

This book truly "demystifies" domestic and global monetary and fiscal policy. The strength of the book lies in the author's ability to not hide behind equations and math but to explain and analyze macropolicy clearly and intuitively. This should be required reading for all members of Congress! I wish I had a book like this while I was in graduate school! Superb!

This is required reading for anyone concerned with today's economic uncertainty. Written in concise format which introduces the reader to two very fundamentally different economic models complete with easy to understand graphs. Brilliantly highlights impacts of government policies intertwined with real world corporate decision making processes. Easily understood by Governors and Grandmas alike!

As Econ texts go, this one is pretty straight forward and compact. It gets the point across in a small amount of space. The real world articles and analysis is very helpful. My professor was pretty bad for this course, so the book was a lifesaver.

A great book for the understading of Macro, and corelate the discussion with the real world. However, the book is not aimed towards the one who is looking for in depth mathematical derivations behind the macro policies. Very interesting to read.

This book is incredibly well written and easy to read. Even a 5th grader can read it and understand the important concepts of Macroeconomics. Reading this book surely shed light to a lot of things that are talked about in the news about the economy. I highly recommend it! Absolutely STUNNING book!

Excellent book. This is the right approach to teaching economics (or Macroeconomics). I find a lot of economics textbooks very tedious to read. A more straight forward, practical and real-life approach to studying economics is very important. Academics need to understand this and Prof. Langdana does. I am in the middle of reading Macroeconomics by Mankiw. I just feel that things can be explained with much less detail and in a much more straight forward manner. There is no need for a lot of equations. Do economics professors purposely make things more detailed and less clear than they need to be? So that, well, their work can come across as more significant, weighty, of having more consequence? Can this be called the academic style as opposed to the practical, efficient and real world style? Macroeconomics to me is an extremely important subject but it is marred by this problem I just mentioned. I loved 'Naked Economics' by Charles Wheelan. He should now come out with 'Naked Macroeconomics'.

I'm an individual with no training in economics that wants to learn and understand more about the U.S. economy, the Fed, and how government affects (or doesn't affect) the economy. As a first step, I read the comments and reviews of a number of books here on Amazon before buying and reading this book by Farrokh Langdana.

In short, this book is tremendous, and was exactly what I was looking for. As an introductory level book for an otherwise educated reader, the book was relatively easy to follow and understand. The first few chapters orient the reader by defining terms and explaining concepts (GDP, CPI, inflation, etc.) in fair detail. The next several chapters progress rapidly by explaining how the various economic concepts are related to one another and showing how those relationships may be used to derive various predictive models. Finally, the book explains how each of the major economic theories (classical, Keynesian, and Supply-Side) differ in their interpretation of the underlying models and information. The book closes with an explanation of the operation of central banks.

Importantly, the book is written from an objective viewpoint. Having read the reviews of other texts, it seems that similarly-themed texts are often written from the perspective, or with the inherent political/economic bias, of their author. Langdana is careful to identify which theories he uses to interpret the various models so as to allow the reader to draw their own conclusion as to how much confidence to place in the model/theory.

This may not be the right book for a high school student or a PhD mathematician. For everyone else, if you are looking to rapidly learn the basics of macroecomomics and monetary policy, this is a very well-written book that I highly recommend.