2010-09-20

Central Themes on Microeconomics

This is a relatively new textbook on intermediate microeconomics written by two leading scholars in microeconomic/game theory, Douglas Bernheim and Michael Whinston
(See publisher's link for further information):


In the introduction, the authors mention the following eight themes on microeconomics. Four are related to individual decision making, the other four are about the competitive market, which might be helpful for instructors who teach microeconomics.
Central Themes on Decision Making: 
1. Trade-offs are unavoidable
2. Good choices are usually made at the margin
3. People respond to incentives
4. Prices provides incentives

Central Themes on Markets:
5. Trade can benefit everyone
6. The competitive market price reflects both value to consumers and cost to producers
7. Compared to other methods of resource allocation, markets have advantages
8. Sometimes, government policy improve on free-market resource allocation
These themes may look a bit too classical, but the book itself contains new topics such as behavioral economics, strategic interactions (with many examples), competitive policies in oligopoly markets, which reflects the authors' expertise and advantages compared to other rival textbooks.

2 comments:

Kohei said...

I was seriously thinking of switching to this textbook for our first year undergrad core course. I adore those IO examples! Unfortunately, the teaching support materials (e.g. 'test bank', online resources) are still underdeveloped for such a large course (400+ students & four lecturers!)... Also, it would have been great for us if the book had some technical appendices with basic calculus...

Unknown said...

I see. It seems that the authors are preparing the second edition now. So, some problems might be fixed...