Customer Reviews

Microeconomics: Economic Way of Thinking

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First of all, RIP Paul Heyne.

Now, about the book.

It's a well-written, easy to read primer on why Mildred Friedman is Our Lord of the Free Market returned from Heaven.

Heyne was renowned for his passion for teaching introductory economic courses at the UW. This comes through in his writing: all of it is clear and accessible, and great for people new to economics. Heyne takes the time to make the core principles of economics understandable.

That said...

This book is almost devoid of graphs or other demonstrations of the material. It's ALL WORDS.
The chapter questions are totally incomprehensible. They include things like, "Is it right or wrong that some people can't get tickets to dodgers' games?"
The answers to the incomprehensible chapter questions aren't included - they're in a separate text - and they're totally in-f***ing-comprehensible. Mostly, instead of answering the questions, he just rants about something.
Every week my class was assigned 10-20 of those questions as review. I routinely got 2 right. Maybe 3. Conceivable answers to the above question would be include "I don't think so," and, "why not?"

He also gives externalities short shrift. Most economists agree they're a big part of why the world is messy, not a happy free-market utopia. Heyne gives them a half-length chapter at the end of the book. This suited my libertarian-nutjob economics teacher just fine, who gave that material about five minutes on the last day of the quarter. Thanks guys. Thanks NAFTA.

The only way I would ever recommend this book would be paired with a book like Stieglitz's 'Freefall' or some other book explaining a more moderate, contemporary take on economics.