Customer Reviews

Macroeconomics

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

 

 

This is an excellent intermediate Macro textbook, and the writing style is more acessible than one usually encounters at this level of economics.
The theory is up-to-date and couched in less political dogma than similar products from other sources.

This is not an introduction to Macro!
This is a first-term MBA or intermediate BA/BS course!

Given the lower quality of the competing texts I have read, I put down most low reviews to sight-unseen grousing by partisans who wish to inflict monetary loss on Professor DeLong for his political views.
In todays political climate this is unsurprising, but it is quite disturbing that it has reached this far into solid science.

I don't normally bother to review books, but the comments on this book are so bizarre I feel the need to respond. This is a textbook for the intermediate macroeconomics level. Someone coming to this book with no economics background at all might find the book hard going in places, but that is to be expected; it is not intended as a piece of popular writing on economics.

I am very familiar with intermediate macroeconomic textbooks -- indeed, I wrote ancillary material for one of the leading textbooks currently on the market -- and I think DeLong's textbook is one of the best books around. For many topics it is *the* best book.

When I first read the reviews of this book I (also) was puzzled by the great divergence of opinion expressed among some reviewers. After purchasing it (on the recommendation of a professor of economics at UCSC)I found it to be quite a good and relatively clear introduction to macroeconomics. This is from someone who finds many of the economic explanations on Wikipedia quite baffling.

However I have a theory about the cause of the difference of opinion expressed by the reviewers: Although the book claims to only require algebra for understanding the math, I believe that a good familiarity with calculus is very helpful in interpreting much of the mathematical explanation of macroeconomics. This is NOT because the book uses the obvious language of calculus ("derivatives" and "integrals"), but rather because it extensively uses the language of functions--and calculus is generally the first math course that more extensively exercises one's thinking about functions. Macroeconomics is not just about "solving equations", it is about understanding functions and how they interact with each other. Although you could grope through this book without familiarity with calculus I think that my background of calculus helped a lot in making it easier to digest many of the mathematical explanations.

Nevertheless many of his other non mathematical explanations in the earlier part of the book should reward even those without such a background. I thought that is explanations on many topics was quite clear and complete.

I took Professor Olney's Intermediate Macro class in Berkeley. We used the 1/e of the textbook along with her study guide. Despite the fact that the first edition was filled with typos and mathematical errors (which have been fixed in the 2/e), the intuition, the explanations, and the graphs were clear.

But what truly separates this textbook from every other intermediate macro textbook is the MPRF-PC model that replaces the AD-AS model that you find in most textbooks.

There are several major flaws in the AD-AS model. First, it uses the price level as the adjustment mechanism to equilibrium output. Second, the AD curve assumes a money supply target.

In the United States and in industrialized world, the key variable to emphasize is the inflation rate and NOT the price level. In addition, the Fed uses an interest rate target and NOT a money supply target.

Delong and Olney's book eliminates the silly assumptions that made sense to use 20 years ago, and uses more realistic assumptions to model a complex economy like the United States. There is no other intermediate macro textbook in the market that teaches the Monetary Policy Reaction Function and Phillips Curve model as clearly as Delong and Olney. Period.

This intermediate level textbook does an excellent job of covering the subject. DeLong writes well. The book requires the requisite introductory macroeconomics background and some facility with algebra and mathematical functions. Those not possessing that background will most likely find themselves frustrated because of their lack of preparation. Anyone who wants to take their knowledge of macroeconomics to the next level should take a look at the book as a potential guide and source.

Sadly, this book's reviews include examples of "gorilla" politics, and "gorilla" thinking. Someone is trying to "defame" De Long via book reviews, aka gorilla politics. They also happen to be moronic, a sad version of 19th century gorilla intelligence. One star from Jacques Zola at the Ecole Polytechnic ("A book that did not deserve to be published") - go to Ecole Polytechnique (correct spelling), there's never been Jacques Zola on staff (pitiful fake name, like a French person picking Dickens or Twain). The miscreant's other reviews use "A Customer", should be "A Dimwit". "his book goes from BAD to WORSE as you read it" - Perhaps if you smoke it, you'll do better. "Ghastly, Garbage and Grotesque" - alliteration, indeed! Except garbage, a noun, between two adjectives? Perhaps Amazon's algorithms will someday achieve artificial intelligence sufficient to detect whatever stupidity this is.

Brad DeLong's well-written intermediate macroeconomics is not-too-traditional yet lovely done. It's a nice book with some unusual features: "For example, DeLong focuses on the interest rate rather than the AS/AD diagram and he includes expanded coverage of the crucial topic of long-run growth." In addition to presenting the material with rich international and historical perspectives, DeLong also did an excellent job in explaining complicated theories and subtle concepts with care and clarity. I hope that the author will also complete the microeconomics part of a comprehensive "Intermediate Economics" text.

Beats around the bush. Very wordy. Extremely politically bias. No answers in back of book for problems. This book does not teach what is, but what should be. Normative Economics at its worst.

This book is basically very miserable. The first chapter is decent...explains everything in everyday terms, you can follow it. By the time you are in the next two or three chapters, Mr. Delong has showed his true colors as far as his miserable writing is concerned because you will be lost. He lacks any tactfulness toward apporaching an already dry subject and is simply way too confusing with his writing. Do not buy this book.

This is a book that was written to counter the book written by Mankiew (by the way Mankiew is also an example of a bad textbook). Mr. De Long does not have a clue how to write a good introductory textbook. He is a below average writer with no style or flair. He needs to take some classes in english 101 writing in order to relieve us from pain of reading his books. Now, with this book published, Brad De Long can inflict misery on poor Berkeley students by making them buy his textbook for introductory macro classes. When is the next edition coming Brad? Eventhough De Long will not make a lot of money but he is still part of the self centered academia that writes books to publish new editions.

Please try to keep name dropping to a minimum. You were a low level treasury official not the secretary of treasury. In addition, you are not a man of letters.