Rating: ![3 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-3-0.gif) Summary: It's too darned big Review: Whether you use this or Varian...you will still need to have a competent instructor. The book is too big and murky for a graduate student to wade through on his own and much of the bulk of the book is unusable in a typical first-year micro course. Game theory is better dealt with via Tirole or a specialized treatment.Certainly, you could spend an entire summer doing nothing but trying to work your way through the entire book. You could also read all of Judge, et al, or you could read all of Blanchard and Fisher...but you could have done 100 things more useful in becoming a good economist an a successful graduate student. Now that I have finished the program, when I need a definition or an explanation, I almost always reach for Varian. MWC gathers dust.
Rating: ![5 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-5-0.gif) Summary: the best econ textbook ever Review: Certainly the best treatment of microeconomics, I don't think anything is going to be able to surpass it in the many years ahead. IMHO, it is much easier to understand than Varian's text (though for those who have had some undergraduate econ it may be the other way around). I wish there were something like this book for macro as well :)
Rating: ![4 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-4-0.gif) Summary: Best Micro Graduate Text on the Market Review: Mas-Colell et al.'s Micro Theory is the only truly comprehensive graduate text in Microeconomics. I found it dense and unecessarily burdened by set theory when I first attempted reading it in the first year of grad school. Yet by the end of the year I found its level and depth to be just right. Kreps' Micro Theory is too conversational to be truly considered a graduate text, but it can be a good read at the begining of your first year. Overall, I think Mas Colell is the better book because its treatment has more depth and balance. Mas Colell's other competitor Varian's Micro Analysis sadly falls short on both those categories. I would only fault Mas Collel et al. for, in many cases, spending half a page defining things in terms of superfluous variables and sets when a two line word definintion would suffice.
Rating: ![5 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-5-0.gif) Summary: THE BEST EVER - rigorous, comprehensive, very clear. Review: Easily the best micro-text available on the market. The authors have done a great job in explaining the concepts. Following the rigorous mathematical derivations is the economic intuition behind the results. All the assumptions underlying the results are clearly stated. They prove many of their claims. They cover a topic fairly completely unlike Varian who seem to be in hurry to finish off as soon as he has started. Unlike Kreps they don't waste time and space chatting with the reader. Most importantly, investing time and effort solving the exercises gives one great confidence and ability to read research papers in professional journals.
Rating: ![3 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-3-0.gif) Summary: It gets better the more you read it. Review: When I started out with this book I hated it. Well, its still a pain, but the longer you study this book the more sense it makes, and the more you understand why they NEED to use all the notation. Modern micro gets very abstract, and we all need to learn all of that. Only when you go back over the text after your first year do you realize how well this book is written. There are some problems with the text, though: (i)too many interesting points are left as exercises, (ii)examples are not fleshout out enough, and (iii) they often try to "explain" a concept by using ONLY the math. Using both math and English would be better.
Rating: ![3 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-3-0.gif) Summary: terrific but difficult to understand!!!! Review: First of all, I know that understanding this book completly make me have a wonderful insight about economics as well as building block in analyzing overall economic field. But details in this book make me wonder whether these exhaustive analysis which heavily depends on mathematics is necessary condition of understanding economics. I wish authors to write book in easy style for students who wanna study alone.
Rating: ![5 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-5-0.gif) Summary: The way a textbook should be. Review: After years of the poor, imprecise and bad written Varian's Microeconomic Analysis, the serious reader has an opportunity to have a book that is rigorous, well written, clear, and complete. Of course, a book like this requires some math foundations.
Rating: ![2 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-2-0.gif) Summary: Full of Math !!!! Review: You need to have a strong mathematical background in order to understand it. Sadly enough the book relies too much in math misplacing along the way the true nature of Microeconomics which is the main reason ( perhaps the only one) why we bought this book. What would you expect, anyhow, from an economics book written by a group of mathematicians ???
Rating: ![5 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-5-0.gif) Summary: IT IS THE BIBLE OF MICROECONOMICS Review: The most complete Microeconomics text ever written. One who completes the text (like me) before starting Graduate school, can be guranteed a faculty position at either M.I.T., Chicago, Harvard or Stanford, but nothing less than that, once rest of the Economics Grad School training is built on that foundation.
Rating: ![5 stars](http://www.reviewfocus.com/images/stars-5-0.gif) Summary: "The" book for microeconomic theory Review: This book can be used as a reference, as a textbook and also for self-instruction. The coverage of material is exaustive, and examples and exercises abound. Typos are relatively few. It is more complete and rigorous than Kreps' and Varian's textbooks. The mathematical level required is, really, only calculus and linear algebra, with some elementary probability. No functional analysis, stochastic processes or topology. This work is "as easy as it gets" for a microeconomic theorist, but not easier. It is an exceptional achievement.
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