Rating: 
Summary: A must for all serious economics students
Review: Alpha Chiang's Fundamental Methods of Mathematical Economics is a must for all serious students for economics. I only have high school mathematics before I started reading this book and by the time I finished, I am able to read economics texts that used mathematical methods.The exposition in Chiang's book is very clear. I recommend this book to all students of economics at the intermediate level.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for graduate students in economics
Review: Alpha Chiang's text should serve as the foundation for all quantitive analysis done in economic theory. It is an invaluable teaching tool for graduate students in economics and will help them better understand the mathematical techniques that have become so necessary for economic modeling.(p) I am not a highly quantitative person myself, but I found Chiang's book comprehensible and a useful reference guide in my gradaute economics classes. Along with Hal Varian's "Microeconomic Theory" and Jan Kmenta's "Econometrics", I would say that Chiang's "Fundamentals of Mathematical Economics" should serve as sacred literature for any prospective graduate student in economics.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book on economists' needed mathematics
Review: An excellent book on mathematics for economists. But the exercises is too simple.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for beginners
Review: As its title says, it is just for beginners. If you have taken 300 level or above courses at Math dept before entering graduate school, then you can throw that book away. Mascollel et al (MWG)'s book is a bible for Ph.D students at top schools, but it is obviously not enough to have preliminary materials in Math if you just read Chiang's book. Honest to say, I suggest everyone who is going to take Economics as his/her field in the life should at least take some courses at Math. BS, MS or even Ph.D in Math is plus! But anyway, Chiang's book is good.
Rating: 
Summary: Best of Three
Review: Chiang has written the best of the three mathematical economics books with which I'm familar. Unlike the book by Simon and Blume, and the book by de la Fuente, Chiang's book actually doesn't assume that you already think fluently in mathematics when trying to teach you math econ. It also contains one of the most pedagogically-sound (or, as we say in economics, efficient) teaching devices we know: exercises. Chiang even provides answers to selected exercises so that the student can test whether he or she has actually done the exercises correctly. Unlike the other two books, Chiang makes learning math econ, if not easy, at least possible. Before writing this review I cracked open Chiang and learned in literally two minutes something that two years with the other two books never taught me. If you're struggling to learn math econ, don't even open the other two books--just focus on Chiang.
Rating:
Summary: The definite must-have book for every math user
Review: Excellent scientific work, the essential math guid
Rating: 
Summary: Never quite goes to the point
Review: I am writing my PhD dissertation in Economics. I was first assigned this book almost 10 years ago during my second year undergraduate course in mathematics for economists. This book has then kept resurfacing, for instance in the summer course in math that preceded my master.
Actually, I quite dislike the book. Lukily, I was given the choice between this book and Simon&Blume and I chose the latter. I unfortunately bought Chang first and started studying this becuase it was the "preferred text".
It turns out that Chang tries to make it too easy. It's great when books make the subject easy, and I abhor formalism for its own sake, but when you have to wade through pages and pages of bubbling and exercises to find out what the chapter is all about, then it is too sloppy. Please have nicely stated assumption, theorem, nicely worked out examples and explanations. No! Chang thinks that it is better to work out for you tons of examples without bothering to put it all together in a nice statement. I get lost in this! Too easy is wrongly easy, if the text book omit to clearly state all the assumptions (because it would be too difficult) you can be sure that my profs put a tricky case in the exam in which the assumptions are violated and you don't know what to do, because Chang never stated them, nor bothered to solve that specific case - or maybe he did solve that case but it got lost among the others. Have a look at the table of content. The first half of the book is appropriate for a first undergraduate course in mathematics for economists, and the second half for a second course. It won't lead you much further than that.
Most masters will require you to learn at least hamiltonians (but that's easy). True problem is that this book does not really give you good basis for thinking mathematically in graduate school.
Rating:
Summary: just the materials needed to tackle economic literature-
Review: I came to finish my economics PhD after a detour via
non-mathematical fields such as law and philosophy and some years after i had taken my Master's in Finance and i found this book extremely helpful.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, for beginner and up
Review: I read this book with a view to priming myself on the mathematics of economics for my work and for anticipated future studies in economics. I found the book to be delightfully clear and free of sticking points - this latter point is very important for those who, like myself, are learning independently. I look forward to reading Chiang's "Elements of Dynamic Optimization" next.
Rating:
Summary: One of the rare textbooks that justify their prices
Review: I used Chaing's book for an intro the mathematical economics as an econ undergrad. Much of the material is useful for both advanced undergraduates and graduate studies. I especially found the optimization (applied differential calculus) and matrix algebra useful. Using an input output coefficient matrix (as described in the text) we were able to see how Russia operated under the communist regime. We used GAMMS for the mathematical programming. Overall the course and this book were an eye opening experience to applying mathematical models to real world problems. I hope to explore this realm of thinking further in my graduate studies. I highly recommend this book, even to people with a somewhat limited math background (1 calculus course).
| 
