Frank, Robert HBernanke, Ben S.
McGraw-Hill/Irwin (New York, 2009) (eng) English9780071285421Unknown4th edMICROECONOMICS; glossary; In recent years, innovative texts in mathematics, science, foreign languages, and other fields have achieved dramatic pedagogical gains by abandoning the traditional encyclopedic approach in favor of attempting to teach a short list of core principles in depth. Two well-respected writers and researchers, Bob Frank and Ben Bernanke, have shown that the less-is-more approach affords similar gains in introductory economics. Although a few other texts have paid lip service to this new approach, Frank/Bernanke is by far the best throughout, and the best executed principles text in this mold. Avoiding excessive reliance on formal mathematical derivations, it presents concepts intuitively through examples drawn from familiar contexts. The authors introduce a coherent short list of core principles and reinforce them by illustrating and applying each in numerous contexts. Students are periodically asked to apply these principles and to answer related questions and exercises. Frank/Bernanke also encourages students to become "Economic Naturalists," by employing basic economic principles to understand and explain what they observe in the world around them.
An economic naturalist understands, for example, that infant safety seats are required in cars but not in airplanes because the marginal cost of space to accommodate these seats is typically zero in cars but often hundreds of dollars in airplanes. Such examples engage student interest while teaching them to see each feature of their economic landscape as the reflection of an implicit or explicit cost-benefit calculation.
Physical dimension
xlviii, ... p.28 cm.ill.
Summary / review / table of contents
Part 1
Introduction
1. Thinking Like an Economist
2. Comparative Advantage: The Basis for Exchange
3. Supply and Demand: An Introduction
Part 2 Competition and the Invisible Hand
4. Elasticity
5. Demand: The Benefit Side of the Market
6. Perfectly Competitive Supply: The Cost Side of the Market
7. Efficiency and Exchange
8. The Quest for Profit and the Invisible Hand
Part 3 Market Imperfections
9. Monopoly and Other Forms of Imperfect Competition
10. Thinking Strategically
11. Externalities and Property Rights
12. The Economics of Information
Part 4 Economics of Public Policy
13. Labor Markets, Poverty, and Income Distribution
14. The Environment, Health, and Safety
15. Public Goods and Tax Policy
Part 5 International Trade
16. International Trade and Trade Policy
Part 6 Macroeconomics: Issues and Data
17. Macroeconomics: The Bird's-Eye View of the Economy
18. Measuring Economic Activity: GDP and Unemployment
19. Measuring the Price Level and Inflation
Part 7 The Long Run
20. Economic Growth, Productivity, and Living Standards
21. Workers, Wages, and Unemployment in the Modern Economy
22. Saving and Capital Formation
23. Money, Prices, and the Federal Reserve
24. Financial Markets and International Capital Flows
Part 8 The Short Run
25. Short-term Economic Fluctuations: An Introduction
26. Aggregate Demand and Output in the Short Run
27. Stabilizing Aggregate Demand: The Role of the Fed
28. Inflation and Aggregate Supply
Part 9 The International Economy
29. Exchange Rates and the Open Economy