1 comments about Foundations of Microeconomics.

1. Thanks for the book :)
   It was in great shape and came in a reasonable time....
   
   Thanks so much, God bless you.

No comments about Business Cycles: Theory, History, Indicators, and Forecasting (National Bureau of Economic Research Studies in Income and Wealth).

1 comments about The Economic Theory of Annuities.

1. Great! The first general theoretic analysis of the annuity market. Necessary reading for discussions of public social security reforms. Lots of results on the effects of longevity increases on retirement , private and aggregate savings. Those in the business should notice the chapters on bundling of annuities and health care and the suggestion for annuity options.

No comments about Microeconomics (Quickstudy Reference Guides - Academic).

2 comments about An Introduction to the Economics of Information: Incentives and Contracts.

1. In less than three hundred pages, the authors are able to introduce Moral Hazard, Adverse Selection and Signalling in an outstanding accessible way. Given the importance of contract theory in modern Economics, undoubtedely this is the first book to be read.
   
   Each chapter is full of examples and graphs that help to understand the mathematics underneath.
   
   The reader is supposed to know Kuhn-Tucker theorem, so any advanced undergraduate student in economics should be able to read it.
   
   The base model, presented in chapter 2, is used as a benchmark to compare wirh the results obtained from the Moral Hazard model (brilliantly presented in chapter 3), Adverse Selection (chapter 4) and Signalling (chapter 5).
   
   Each chapter has very well posed exercises, whose answers are in the end of the book. Furthermore, advanced themes are also discussed in the end of each chapter, giving to the reader a complete overview about theory of information.
   
   So, since this theme has been increasingly important in modern economics, and given that this book is very easily readable, I strongly recommend it to any person who wishes to understand theory of contracts and incetives.



2. Few books are concerned with this subject. Inés Macho-Stadler and David Pérez-Castrillo were able to explain in a intuitive and structural way the problems derived from asymmetric information. This book guides you along the way to understand clearly the features of this themes.

5 comments about Microeconomics.

1. Sycophants in my economics class memorized the book and merely recited it on the exam. The book overly encourages rote memorization and presents most of the material as incontrovertible.



2. Frankly, I find this text rather elementary. It is written on about an 8th grade level and this ruins the otherwise good examples and thorough analysis. For anyone remotely interesting in actually learning economics (rather than just memorizing the book to get A's on tests), a supplementary source is needed.



3. This book is terrible, unclear and contributed to my thorough distaste for the otherwise interesting subject of economics.



4. I have used Parkin as an auxilliary source for my micro 102 classes for years. His examples are products that can be related to by 19-year-olds, AND he does not use wheat or other perfectly competitive products to exemplify a downward sloping demand curve! Many other do, which causes great confusion among the students. What is wrong with careful, thoughtful, comprehensive explanations of concepts that are difficult for first time micro students? He covers several complicated topics that are left out of the more highly rated texts by Mankiw and others. I am wondering if we are even rating the same book...I give it the maximum rating!



5. The Parkin book is dumb down but so much so that you dont understand Microeconomics the way you'll need to if you plan on taking advanced theory, money and banking, etc.

   I prefer McConnell Brue who has been the staple and bible of Microeconomics for years!

   Smart universities choose McConnell Brue and dumb ones like Micro econ at Rice seem to choose Parkin.

5 comments about Principles of Microeconomics (8th Edition) (MyEconLab Series).

1. The general orientation of the book is theory with applications, and the authors seem to emphasize the real-world application a lot.



2. The text is of medium reading level, although sometimes the extensive introduction to terms is unavoidable in introductory texts. That is to say, we can find pages with five or six terms crowded together, but that's what happens to almost every introductory textbook and generally expected when you touch a new subject at the first time.



3. Mathematics is used broadly in the book but limited to simple algebra, i.e., no calculus is used. So the level thus is appropriate for an introductory economics class.



4. This book helps me alot in my jop and in my life.



5. wow another gripping economics textbook!!!!
   
   I keep this one on my coffee table, displaying it proudly in my home.
   
   
   the chapters dont match the ones in the case fair hardcover principles of economics.

3 comments about Boyes, Microeconomics, 7e.

1. I am a student in college who has purchased and read Boyes/Melvin's Microeconmics, Fourth Edition. I regard the book to be of inferior quality and sloppy. Although I can understand the concepts coming from the text, the writing itself is inherently poor. There are many examples of the authors misusing words, mispelling words, and making the text generally more complicated than it needs to be. To professors looking for a microeconomics textbook, please look elsewhere, for I am not the only student who has encountered these problems at my school. Thankyou.



2. Even though I agree with many of the opinions that Boyes expresses in his book, I dare say that he does not know the difference between an opinion and a fact. Teaching this sort of thinking to our impressionable college students is dangerous at best and disastrous at worst. College is a place where kids are supposed to be taught how to think. Indoctrination of our youth is the worst kind of sin because we are condemning the next generation to a lifetime of limited thought and stagnation of progress.
   
   There are many controversial topics in Economics. For most of them, Boyes only tells the student his own point of view. Nevermind the point of view of anyone else. This book even goes as far as including an EDITORIAL at the end of every chapter.
   
   Also disturbing, this book is full of mistakes. Mathematical errors, incorrect data, etc. I found at least two mistakes in every chapter. Most mistakes were minor, and a few were major.



3. For a little more money I would have received the whole student support package including the CD ROM, the book was in good shape but other sites include more infomation when you purchase.

3 comments about Foundations of Microeconomics plus MyEconLab plus eBook 1-semester Student Access Kit (4th Edition).

1. Fast service, great refrences, and helpfull sudy guide to boost my grades. Overall rating 5 Stars



2. Great service and fast shipping. Will do business again and highly recommended



3. The book isn't too scary, it's the subject matter that you should fear. This book isn't too hard to follow, the terms are fairly defined, though they don't explain all the various charts in collaboration with the homework I have in my class, but it's okay. Book is full color, normal print, layout's nice.

4 comments about The Economics of Information Technology: An Introduction (Raffaele Mattioli Lectures).

1. As a graduate student in Economics having an undergraduate degree in Information Management, I pay much attention toward those "new economy" issues. The Economics of Information Technology illustrates the application of economic knowledge on information technology in an easy and clear way. As Professor Varian argues, "Many of the effects that drive the new information economy were there in the old industrial economy-you just have to know where to look." (p. 12), the authors demonstrate how to use the models we learned in microeconomics to discuss the development of information technology as well as the rationales behind intellectual property. The economics used throughout this book is pretty straightforward; anyone who has the most essential microeconomic knowledge can understand the whole book. Besides, the authors also review the most recent issues in intellectual properties and patents and then propose ideas about the reform of the patent system. This book is undoubtedly a very good introduction; furthermore, it exemplify some further applications and research directions, which would also benefit those who want to take a step further into this field.



2. This is a great concise treatment of the topic with footnotes sufficient to allow the interested reader to perform further research. I am seldom disappointed by Varian's work, and no exception here. This is good enough that it is now part of the required reading for my course "Economics of Technology" in the Masters of Information Management program at Washington University in St. L. - Prof. Steve Parsons



3. The rise of the Internet and its resulting commercialization have caused many to wonder whether the economics of the information age is governed by a different set of rules than can be found in "classical" economic treatises. If information technology is indeed different in this regard, this would be of great interest to those businesses whose goal it is to generate profits by its use. This very short book, composed of only two articles, gives a fairly good introduction to the economic issues that arise in the use of information technology. The authors in the book certainly motivate the subject well, but the length of the articles, along with the relative paucity of references, entails that the reader will have to do a lot of outside research in order to obtain a more in-depth understanding of the issues.
   
   The author of the first article clearly believes that high-technology industries face the same market forces as any other industry, but that there are some that are of particular concern to them. Fixed costs for example are very high for information goods, but the marginal costs are very small. In addition, intellectual property is very important to the high-tech industry.
   
   The Internet "boom" has become the paradigmatic example of the economics of information technology due to the speed in which the Internet took hold in business all around the world and in the "wild" speculation that took place in dot.com companies in the late nineteen-nineties. The author claims that the large increase in the NASDAQ during this time is evidence of the efficacy of competition, but he does not offer detailed evidence for this claim. When discussing the reasons behind the Internet financial "bubble" he also annoys the reader somewhat by referring to the differences between "rational" investors and "real people". It would be difficult he believes to cause a financial bubble with the former class but relatively easy with the latter. There is however no evidence for this view, from either historical data or from simulation studies. This reviewer knows of no study that is able to distinguish between a `rational investor' and a `real person' in terms of their ability to cause a financial bubble. It would be difficult in and of itself to arrive at criteria that would distinguish the two classes. It would be even more difficult to collect historical data to indeed show their behavior is different in the financial markets.
   
   The author interprets the Internet boom as an example of what he calls "combinatorial innovation." This characterizes an historical period where a collection of technologies emerges whose components can be combined to form new products. Innovators cause a technology boom by working through all the possibilities in these components. This would seem to be a plausible explanation of the Internet boom, but it is one that would need to be examined with more care. The designation of a product as being innovative or an idea as being creative is difficult, as patent officials will attest to wholeheartedly. In addition, innovation must also be correlated with utility, in that products must be useful to the individuals or businesses that are using them. And arriving at a sound notion of creativity and innovation is also very important to those who want to automate these processes. If information technology can itself be trained (or "programmed") to create useful products, this would be very significant economically (possibly resulting in another technological "boom"), and would have major ramifications for employment and productivity.
   
   The second article of the book is concerned with the economics of intellectual property in information technology, with particular emphasis on the role that it plays in the competitive strategies of IT firms. Legal issues are discussed in various places in the article, giving some insight into their complexity. The authors discuss the current schism between the `incentives' school, which emphasizes the ability of innovators to claim financial awards for their creations, and the `openness' school, which emphasizes the role of open (and essentially free) development in the public domain. There have been few empirical studies done on resolving which one of these approaches is optimal in terms of the creation of wealth or the creation of social benefit.
   
   In discussing the issue of whether the patent system can provide any incentives for a private firm to make a commitment to innovation and research, the authors outline a simple mathematical (static) model to illustrate the tradeoffs that are involved. The results of this model indicate that the patent system will not offer sufficient incentives for investors. The authors point out however that this model is too simplistic to model the real issues involved in the economics of the patent system, and that a dynamic model would reveal that patent holders are able to obtain rewards that are much greater than the social contributions they make. They do not discuss this model at any length, nor give references to the "large literature" they claim exists on patent system economics. One would like to know for example what the dependence of the incentive is on the lifetime of the patent; whether a patent system can be optimized with respect to all industries, i.e. whether it can ensure optimal incentives regardless of the products offered; the degree to which patents have to be original or "creative" in order for incentives to be optimal; whether empirical studies have been done that indicate vulnerabilities to patent issuing; and whether a company can exist solely by innovation and the resulting licensing of patents.



4. In this little book (only 102 pages long) Hal Varian, Google's Chief Economist, and his colleagues, all three at UC Berkeley, tackle with ease a difficult topic for the general reader. In the benchmark model of competition all economic agents have perfect sight of, and easy access to, information. There are no profit incentives to hide information that everyone already have. The Economics of Information Technology exposes the weaknesses of such a model. The intellectual property rights system is reasonably strong in dealing with information technology goods. However, "copyright law is critical in the information content industries...." Such law tends to be restrictive. Information is by nature a common good, beset by the tragedy of the commons. The topic is pretty dense, but the benefits from reading this book are enormous. Besides, because it is a short book, the reader can always re-read it. Highly recommended!!
   
   Amavilah, Author
   Modeling Determinants of Income in Embedded Economies
   ISBN: 1600210465