Customer Reviews

Microeconomics

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

 

 

Economics is simple. This book teaches economics by emphasizing its simplicity. By including/excluding certain sections, it can indeed be used for high school students up to some (non-economics) graduate school classes.

I have taught microeconomics to undergraduates for years and this is the most effective book at teaching students from a wide variety of backgrounds (meaning majors and non-majors). Students with a strong quantitative background or those wanting to learn about economics more in depth should probably buy something else.

I am currently enrolled in a Microeconomics course at Columbia University, and I do not find this book easy to read at all, the reason being that the author makes no effort to link microeconomic concepts to real world problems. I have found my Macroeconomics textbook to be immensely more interesting because the concepts relate immediately to social issues and real world economic problems. For students who choose to study economics because of its insights into real world problems, this text may become frustrating. I suggest that the authors more examples of microeconomics in the real world, such as the explanation of "President Carter's Gasoline Tax" on page 106. When economic theory is taught with no reference to the real world, it makes some students less interested in the subject. I intended to study economics with the goal of gaining insight into social welfare problems and understanding government policies. Learning ratios and equations that simply determine how much tacos or hamburgers Sarah wants to eat was demotivating. As a result, I am trudging through my textbook (and class) and starting to wonder if this subject is worth studying.

Is it: a)wordy, b)understandable, c)good in explaining concepts? All three, interestingly.

I've seen better (Mankiw) AND worse (the name slips my mind, but it was from a professor in Iowa) microeconomics texts. The main problem is that in striving to explain the concept (which the author does very well), he really beats it in. But if you miss lectures (or have a new prof who teaches from the book, as was my case), then you should do no wrong with this book.

this is by no means an introductory economics text.. It's an intermediate level textbook.. It assumes that the student is capable of certain mathematical techniques (you can't expect a beginner to calculate the optimal consumer choice using the Lagranges method in chapter 3! - and it gets worse)

It is true that most of the time you have to flip the page to find the graph that is being explained. However it didn't annoy me too much. It is actually good thing if you want to practice and draw the graph yourself.

The 2nd edition had some errors but in this edition (3rd) they are corrected as far as I could see.

About the authors:

Michael Katz - University of California at Berkeley. Received the Earl F. Cheit Outstanding Teaching Award in 1989 and 1993. Served as chief economist of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

Harvey Rosen - Princeton University, Fellow of the Econometric Society and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research

This is a very well written textbook. There are many textbooks out there on the markets and this one has been written with the beginning reader in mind. It is just too easy to scare the beginner with too-serious, too-academic dry language. Economics is fun to learn and the first textbook a student ever keeps in hand should make him interested, curious, wanting more and more, and of course, amused. The language of Katz and Rosen's textbook is by no means frivolous, but it is entertaining. They do not pull the rabbit out of the hat and startle the reader. Instead, they guide readers from familiar environment towards the unknown, always being down to earth and somehow, interestingly, economic theory sneaks in - in the meantime.

The order of theory presentation and the structure of the book really facilitate learning. I have used this book with the introductory microeconomics course, along with a few other ones - just for a test. They all preferred this one so we stuck with it for the remainder of the course.

In the middle of the book one finds a transparency with a graph, which, when applied, shows the effects of some parameter change. Excellent idea, as the student can see dynamically what happens with the application. It's like a hand-operated video... It's a pity that there is only one such transparency.

In summary, recommended for most introductory courses in microeconomics. it will keep students interested and will not scare them at all. Why want anything more?

It's so annoying to read about graphs and figures that appear on the next page. If the authors are going to cite these visual tools have them on the same page whenever possible. Of course it is unrealistic to expect that everytime but in the K&R book this occurred 90% of the times. It's annoying when you have to flip the pages. This annoyance knocked 3 stars from what would have been a 5-star rating.

What's right about the text?

The economics is sound and the teaching is concise. Bravo in that regard.

The books is too wordy for the simple economics it is trying to teach and it lacks direction in some subjects. It also missed essential concepts like kinked demand theory, and the Chamberlain Model.

This was supposed to be economics for high school and/or university students? Is was too simplistic for a 10-year old. The examples that were used were very common sense. Like, a firm wants to maximize profits...or everyone is different. Complete waste of time.

1. I did not read the book so I can not talk about the book, althoug I should have rate it otherwise I could not have submit this review! I rate it based on the info given by my professor of macroeconomics!
2. I want to make comments on the review of Mr. adoumri; I would say that he was disappointed with the book because, as can be seen from his review, hi actually wanted to learn things from macroeconomics, but unfortunatelly he took a book for microeconomics, so he is actually talking about apples having in mind pears!! :-)
One should be cautious when writing, as well as when reading other people's reviews!
Thank you!