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Title: Principles of Economics by N. Gregory Mankiw ISBN: 0-03-025951-7 Publisher: South-Western College Pub Pub. Date: 09 June, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $111.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (24 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Clear, Simple, and Useful
Comment: I read the first edition of this book on the trains to/from work, skipping the Questions and Problems in the end of the chapters. Extremely readble, this book is most relevant to daily life. Maybe it's simple, but consider quantum mechanics and general physics. Quantum mechanics is a whole lot more complicated than general physics, but we donot use quantum mechanics in daily life. One clearly understood idea is worth more than 1000 ideas we donot really comprehend. This book explains the basic ideas in economics in the most clearly way. Reading 2 less excellent books is not a good subtitute of reading 1 truly excellent one. (Discussing Jim Carrey's earning, the author writes, "If Jim Carrey is the funnest actor around, then everyone will want to see his next movie; seeing twice as many movies by an actor half as funny is not a good substitute.") This explains why Jim got ...[many millions] in 1995, and also why the author was prepaid ...[millions] for this textbook.
Rating: 4
Summary: good general knowledge
Comment: This book is an excellent source for understanding the major principles of economics. It seems more geared towards those people who want a general but accurate working knowledge of economic topics, especially since it shuns use of mathematics like the plague. It is this fact however, that makes the book less useful to the intermediate and higher level student of economics who just wants topics explained in as clear a way as possible, but then also wants to see the mathematical methods involved in these areas. Nonetheless, this is the first economics book that I have ever read that has such a high level of lucidity and clearness to it.
Rating: 1
Summary: Ridiculous Oversimplification
Comment: Mankiw has taken a fairly complex discipline and "dumbed it down" so low that 60 percent of our economics faculty refuse to use this book. In 15 years of teaching at the university level, I had never objected to a departmental book recommendation until I used Mankiw's text for one semester. This thing is awful!!
What's the problem? For starters, Mankiw preaches his own beliefs as if they are "generally accepted" by the discipline. He takes complex economic issues and solves them with overly simplistic statements that are presented as matters of fact. That's wrong when introducing students to economics for the first time. Students will think they understand economics when, in fact, they'll only be exposed to a very biased perspective. As an example, Mankiw introduces the Phillips Curve, of all things, in the FIRST chapter! Why not give students a little foundation for understanding the basics of the Phillips Curve, not to mention the controversy surrounding it, before laying this thing on them as though it is fundamental to the discipline (which it isn't)? He continues with this horrific oversimplification of complex or highly debatable topics, solving controversial problems with a stroke of the pen.
I'm not one of these economists who believes that a principles textbook has to be terribly rigorous for it to be useful. I've used the Stiglitz book and concluded that it was beyond the scope of my students. On the other hand, I prefer a book with a little substance to it. If you're looking for a "highly readable" principles of economics textbook that is unbiased and technically correct, I recommend Irvin Tucker's Economics For Today.
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Title: Armchair Economist: Economics And Everyday Experience by Steven Landsburg ISBN: 0029177766 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: March, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: New Ideas from Dead Economists: An Introduction to Modern Economic Thought by Todd G. Buchholz, Martin Feldstein ISBN: 0452280524 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Principles of Microeconomics by N. Gregory Mankiw ISBN: 0030270162 Publisher: South-Western College Pub Pub. Date: 06 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $80.95 |
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Title: Principles of Macroeconomics by N. Gregory Mankiw, Gregory N. Mankiw ISBN: 0030270170 Publisher: South-Western College Pub Pub. Date: 02 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $80.95 |
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Title: Essentials of Economics by N. Gregory Mankiw ISBN: 0324171919 Publisher: South-Western College Pub Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $104.95 |
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