Microeconomic Theory: An Integrated Approach

Rating:
Summary: Very useful introduction to microeconomics using calculus
Review: This is a very special book. Nowadays, most introductory textbooks on microeconomics teach intuitions and models that are carefully designed to avoid the use of even basic calculus as much as possible. This is not necessarily a bad thing because most college students don't have much calculus. However, for those that have even a basic understanding of calculus, there is a lot to be gained by studying basic microeconomics using mathematical tools.

This is the rare introductory text specifically designed to teach using calculus. This is refreshing and can be quite exciting for advanced high school students, undergraduates, and even masters candidates who would like to use math to be introduced to utility theory, consumer optimization, market demand curves, demand elasticities, short and long run production issues, firm optimization, short and long run costs of production, market structures including monopoly, issues related to input markets, and equilibrium analysis.

Really, the use of math here does aid understanding. The writing is clear, the illustrations are helpful, and the equations are quite understandable even if you only have calc 1 in your repertoire.

Take a look, I think you will like it and get real value from it.


Rating:
Summary: Very good overview of microeconomic theory
Review: When I took intermediate microeconomics I was assigned Microeconomics by Hal Varian, which from what I gather is the predominate book used by professors, however it shouldn't be. This book is a far better handling of intermediate micro than is the Varian book, or any others that I've seen for that matter. Most undergraduate books that I have seen shy away from using calculus to explain the theories, which is really unfortunate because calculus makes this fascinating field far less cumbersome and much more accessible. The first two chapters on reviewing calculus for economics are great and really help clarify the relevance of calculus to economics. I find that utilizing calc makes microeconomics a much easier field to understand and this book does that very well. The only complaint is that I have noticed a few errors here and there, like mislabeled graphs or a few misreferences to the wrong graphical explanations, but it is easy enough to realize from the context, it would be nice if these weren't there, but overall this is the best book for microeconomic theory I have seen.

Rating:
Summary: Very good overview of microeconomic theory
Review: When I took intermediate microeconomics I was assigned Microeconomics by Hal Varian, which from what I gather is the predominate book used by professors, however it shouldn't be. This book is a far better handling of intermediate micro than is the Varian book, or any others that I've seen for that matter. Most undergraduate books that I have seen shy away from using calculus to explain the theories, which is really unfortunate because calculus makes this fascinating field far less cumbersome and much more accessible. The first two chapters on reviewing calculus for economics are great and really help clarify the relevance of calculus to economics. I find that utilizing calc makes microeconomics a much easier field to understand and this book does that very well. The only complaint is that I have noticed a few errors here and there, like mislabeled graphs or a few misreferences to the wrong graphical explanations, but it is easy enough to realize from the context, it would be nice if these weren't there, but overall this is the best book for microeconomic theory I have seen.