5 comments about Six Sigma Pricing: Improving Pricing Operations to Increase Profits (Six Sigma).

1. Developing a pricing strategy is easy, it's execution that's difficult. With a lot of conflicting interests and stakeholders, variation in the execution (pricing processes) can be costly. Unfortunately, ensuring price execution in adherence with your price strategy is often difficult. Six sigma pricing can really help to ensure effective adherence to contract terms or price guidelines. Working fact based is a huge benefit in a subject as pricing. I recommend this book if you are looking where and how to start improving your pricing processes !
   
   Pol Vanaerde - president European Pricing Platform - www.pricingplatform.eu



2. As an academic, I have been searching for a good book, which can be used in Business School classes to introduce students to pricing operations as a marketing topic and also Six Sigma for process improvement. It is one of a few books available, which is serious enough to be used as a text book but also full of real-life and relevant industry examples. Sometimes, I feel really uncomfortable to hear from students discussing Six Sigma, who obviously had read jargon filled Six Sigma books with little substance. This book is an exception, since it presents Six Sigma and pricing concepts clearly and in an applied context.



3. The authors admit early in the book that they've taken on a very challenging task: to provide readers a way to bring what might be the most unwieldly and convoluted corporate process - the "pricing process" - under some semblance of control. To a large degree, they succeed. They do a wonderful job of using Six Sigma as a means to make this challenge manageable, without letting Six Sigma gain the upper hand. In other words, this is a very useful and practical book about removing defects from your decision-making process on pricing. It's not a book which treats pricing as just more grist for the Six Sigma mill. This book is definitely worth reading if you feel your company's pricing process needs more discipline, rigor, and structure.



4. Pricing, getting it "right" and positioning a company with a cohesive plan to address this critical process is always a challenge. While some may think of Six Sigma as a cold, clinical tool (which it can be), the authors get it right with Six Sigma Pricing. From my perspective, the volatile economic environment in which we find ourselves operating today, with the Euro surging past US$1.55, profit margins can dissipate more quickly than one can imagine if you are not on top of your game. The authors couple Six Sigma processes and good business sense with proven processes to help companies manage this critical process. Very well done.



5. Six Sigma Pricing: Improving Pricing Operations to Increase Profits (Six Sigma)
   
   I would recommend this book to any executive looking to gain a better understanding of pricing, the pricing process, and the dynamics involved in bringing better pricing precision to your organization.
   
   As a C-suite executive in a $1B food manufacturing company, while I have no pricing/procurement responsibilities, I am directly involved in Strategy and strategic planning for our organization; and in the current marketplace of rising commodity costs with questionable price elasticity, maximizing profits for us requires a thorough understanding of price.
   
   This book helped me better understand and participate in the strategic discussions with my other business partners.

4 comments about Recessions and Depressions: Understanding Business Cycles.

1. does a good job of explaining in simple terms the effects different financial and economic organizations and markets have on one another. if you've ever been laid off or lost money in the stock market (as i have), this book can help you place your personal loss in the broader context and perhaps anticipate things so that you're better prepared in the future.



2. This is by far the best book I have seen on business cycles. Other books are either too handwavy or too abstract and dry. This book is very precise and comprehensive and at the same time very readable and accessible. It is an excellent blend of theory and real world.
   
   The book explains many theories of business cycles. Some of these theories are widely known, while some I have not seen else where. But all are explained very well.
   
   The book also shows how these theories apply to real world events like the Great Depression, the East Asian crisis, the Argentina crisis, and the Japanese depression. All are excellent case studies.



3. Great Book! This book explains all the major economic theories and then reviews all the major recessions and depressions of the 20th century. It is written well and keeps the reader interested and engaged.



4. Don't believe it when they say readable. It is not actually UN-readable, but it is hard to believe any "informed general readers" actually make it all the way through. Which is a shame, since this is a very important subject.
   
   Try "The Return of Depression Economics" by Krugman. It covers most of the same ground, and is extremely informative, but does it in a very readable fashion.

5 comments about Unstoppable: Finding Hidden Assets to Renew the Core and Fuel Profitable Growth.

1. 
   In two previously published books, Profit from the Core (2001) and then Beyond the Core (2004), Chris Zook shares what several years of extensive and intensive research revealed about "how companies fail to recognize the potential of their core business and, as a result, prematurely abandon it in pursuit of hot markets or sexy new ideas, only to realize their error - often, when it is too late." He suggests a systematic way for organizations to assess their full potential and to make certain, also, that they do not fall into "this common, and typically human, trap."
   
   In this volume, Zook draws upon an even wider and deeper wealth of research sources that include about fifty interviews, mostly of CEOs. The title is explained by the fact that he and his associates chose to study most closely those companies "that beat the odds. We also analyzed patterns of failure and estimated the odds of success offered by various paths in various situations." He goes on to observe that all of the success stories built their renewal on their "hidden assets" that had been previously been undervalued, unrecognized, and/or underutilized. "These assets were not central to the strategy of the past, but they held the key to the future. Furthermore, the older and more complex the company, the greater was the likelihood of finding promising hidden assets." In other words, many companies already "hold most of the cards for "a winning hand" but do not realize it.
   
   I highly recommend all three of Zook's books because, together, they answer three separate but related, and critically important questions:
   
   1. How to define and grow an organization's core assets? (Profit from the Core)
   2. How to expand its boundaries into new territory? (Beyond the Core)
   3. How to redefine and renew its core? (Unstoppable)
   
   No company is forever "unstoppable" but most (if not all) companies can take full advantage of the information and counsel Zook provides in this book to find correct answers to all three of these questions achieve core renewal without "leaps to distant and hot new markets, ...being the first adopter of a pioneering new strategy,...[or making] as `big bang' acquisition." In fact, unless a given organization has "beaten the odds" by sustaining profitable growth, it should first define or redefine its core assets and then grow or renew them, before committing any resources to organizational and/or territorial expansion.
   
   Zook is to be commended on the care with which he defines various terms. For example, undervalued business platforms "that might have once been secondary in importance but now have the potential to be the foundation for a new major core business"(e.g. IBM's Global Services Group). Also unexploited customer assets that tend to exist in three primary forms: "knowledge gathered as part of serving the customer but that, over time, accumulates an inherently greater value of its own...a unique position of trust of relationship with a set of customers [that gives] much more access and influence than has been recognized (e.g. American Express and Harman International). And finally, underutilized capabilities ("the most difficult hidden asset to discern but no less powerful") that result in losses of position to competitors in terms of cost, speed, logistics, design, and quality of customer service (e.g. the United States Postal Service's inability to invest as much as FedEx and UPS in system upgrades). "At the root of such competitive reversals we often find a yawning capability gap that was undetected, dismissed, or ignored."
   
   I especially appreciate Zook's skillful use of various reader-friendly devices such as check-lists that focus on key points covered within a chapter: "Seven Steps to Redefining Your Core" (pages 24-25), a "State of the Core Diagnostic" (Figure 2-3 on Page 44), "Detecting Undervalued Business Platforms" (Pages 82 and 83), "Identifying Hidden Customer Assets" (Page 115), "Defining Your Core Capabilities" (Page 140), and "Ten Principles of Core Growth and Redefinition" (Page158). These and other check-lists facilitate, indeed expedite frequent review of key points later.
   
   Although hidden assets are the "real key" to redefinition and capabilities are "the building blocks of renewal," and I agree with Zook that they are, it is important to keep in mind that transformation and renewal initiatives should never end. Zook asserts that "the real focus of business should be external - on competitors, shifts in technology, and customer dynamics." However, ironically, for many companies now searching for profitable growth, some "of their most challenging demons are internal" and their "most difficult foes" are often themselves. Unless they identify and then leverage the hidden assets they already have or to which they have easy access, they will either be out-of-business or acquired by another company within the next ten years.



2. In an age of ever-shortening corporate life-cycles, Chris Zook examines the way in which some companies have successfully adapted to a harsher and more investor and public conscious corporate environment by expanding, redefining and reinventing their core businesses. As the future of large successful corporate conglomerates becomes increasingly uncertain in the wake of market forces, such as private equity buyouts, hostile or activist shareholder activity and other evolving market forces, which threaten to undermine long-standing successful market strategies, some companies somehow emerge from the shark-infested waters with little resemblance of their former selves and do so with greater vitality, profitability and vigor than ever before. Never before has one author caused a reader to re-examine the strategies that have shaped the global corporate atmosphere for so many years. Companies can no longer simply search for traditional market synergies among affordable competitors, or simply aim to lower production costs or hope to engineer a new product or discover a new market. Instead, these companies will be forced to seek out lesser known `hidden assets' in order to shift their core profit structure. They will also be forced to focus and refine that core and defend it vehemently against emerging low-cost competitors who seek to steal or infringe upon their core. Companies today will be forced to take actions such as these in their aim to become unstoppable, or they will inevitably suffer the consequences which more and more companies find themselves succumbing to.



3. Chris Zook has written two previous books about paying attention to the core of your business and how to mine it for every dollar it will yield. This book talks about what to do when your core is beginning to falter. Rather than letting the rapid changing marketplace stop your company he suggests redefining your core. However, rather than leaping onto some popular bandwagon that has nothing to do with your present core, he advocates finding hidden assets within your company. He offers a process for understanding where you are in your strategic cycle, the Focus-Expand-Redefine (FER) growth cycle. Using this structure, he shows you how to know when it is time to redefine your core and the dangers of getting it wrong.
   
   Zook shows you what to look for in the way of platforms that you could promote from secondary status to become primary areas for your business. These might be technologies you acquired along with the purchase of a company, but it wasn't why you bought the company. It could be adjacent geographic areas, or markets that you could expand into without having to completely recast your company. Or it might be orphan products that you can use to exploit changing market conditions and the new opportunities they often create.
   
   I also agree with and enjoyed the author's emphasis on paying attention to the things your customers can teach you. If long term customers are leaving you they are being served by new competitors, new technologies, or are going out of business. You need to find out exactly what is happening. This also includes learning to segment your customer base as finely as possible. If you can learn to serve micro-segments of your customer base rather than having to treat them as if they were all the same kind of person, you will be able to develop those markets more fully. Your customers will also offer suggestions for improvements to your existing products and services, so pay attention. If you don't meet their needs, your competitors will. When they suggest new products to you, listen even more closely.
   
   The other place to find hidden assets are in your capacities. That is the ability your company has to execute and repeat value creating tasks at a high level of quality. You should inventory the dozens to hundreds of capacities your company has and then figure out which are the most critical. Those are your core capabilities. Are there other things you could use them for? Are there capacities that are important in supporting the core that could be recast to become core capabilities in their own right?
   
   I think this book offers some important food for thought. When you can work the FER cycle of growth you can become unstoppable, not because the old core doesn't burn out, but because you kindle and ignite a new fire to run your company's engine before it does.
   
   reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI



4. Normally the third book in a series either rehashes the prior two books, or requires that you read all three to understand the authors points. Unstoppable is unique in this regard as the book stands on its own and does not require you to read the other books.
   
   Zook talks in depth about how enterprises can find source of growth from the core of their company either by finding hidden assets, customers or capabilities. The strength of this book is its detailed discussion of each of these sources of growth from the core and extending the core. Zook also provides detailed tools to help the reader apply these ideas to their company. This is particularly unique in a book that addresses issues of growth and growth strategy.
   
   In some ways, Zook's book should be used as a companion to the book "BLUE OCEAN STRATEGY" which talks about identifying opportunities where there are no competitors. Used in combination, Blue Ocean will open up new possibilities, while Unstoppable will provide a way to execute on these opportunities and build off of your core to achieve them.
   
   The book is clearly written with detailed case studies and verbatims form actual companies going through their growth processes. This is unique for any business book and Zook's use of extensive interview comments makes the book seem real and actionable rather than academic.
   
   While Zook's book is well researched, there is a subtle and important bias in the research. Zook's results and statistics are largely based on analyzing projects that he and his company have conducted, rather than looking at the general marketplace. This is strength in that the book can talk about implementation details because they did the work. However, it is a subtle weakness in that the cases suffer from selection bias that has a tendency to color the results and conclusions. Zook's attention to detail, pragmatism, and exposing tools do compensate for this research weakness and for most it will not matter, but recognize that it is there.
   
   Overall, I would recommend this book for any executive who is looking to change their enterprise or recognize the need to do more in order to grow. This is one of the top 10 business books I have read so far this year so highly recommended.



5. This is the concluding volume in Chris Zook's trilogy on the business core. The previous two books focused on supporting, exploiting and expanding your current core, whereas this book shows what you can do when your current core falters. Zook points out the high risks of defending your core until your company dies, or of jumping to the next new thing and getting it wrong. Then he shows you how to find and exploit your hidden assets. He uses many examples to illustrate his points in a compelling way. The approach is action-oriented and he provides many good questions to ask, lists to use in working things through, and some useful charts and graphs (but not too many). We recommend this book if you are thinking of taking on such a project: It will whet your appetite and motivate your team for what you are going to do. However, before you undertake something this complex and risky, you may want to enlist somebody like Zook who has the expertise to help you.

5 comments about The Firm, the Market, and the Law.

1. This book is a reprint of several of Coase's previous works together with an introduction that links them. This line of thinking is very productive for framing solutions to various problems, economic, social, political, and legal. Well worth reading.



2. A wonderful enrichment of Coase's seminal "The Nature of the Firm" with essays by Coase himself that explicate clearer the background that lead to his development of that theory as well as his reflections fifty years later that add significant breadth to half of the issues missed in this original treatise. Some of the other essays are less interesting and not as well stated or, to my mind, accurate; but do add some additional insight that one wishing better to understand the approach taken by Coase needs to have in order to undertake further analysis in this direction.



3. Se trata de un libro clásico, imprescindible en un primer acercamiento a la perspectiva del análisis económico del derecho de sociedades.



4. Ronald Coase is a fantastic economist. He writes with great lucidity and a confidence which suggests to the reader that his arguments "fall into the category of truths which can be deemed self-evident" (page 1). Coase's principal aim in these essays is to correct what he believes to be the flaws of mainstream economic theory. In the process of doing so, he asks some remarkably novel and challenging questions, but in the end fails to pursue them consistently, arriving at conclusions which employ the same assumptions by those whom he is trying to refute.
   
   The book consists of seven essays. Very briefly, the first essay is an introduction in which Coase describes his economic outlook while introducing the concepts contained in each of the following essays. The remaining six essays can be divided up as follows. Chapters two and three contain discussions of the firm. The second essay is the highly influential "The Nature of the Firm" essay while the third essay applies these arguments to a general research proposal on industrial organization. Chapter four and seven are essays which can be described as historical. Chapter four summarizes and contributes to the "marginal cost controversy." For those with little exposure to this issue, this essay can be passed over. Chapter seven is the famous "The Lighthouse in Economics" which challenges the public goods argument by showing that the lighthous has historically been provided by private companies. The remaining two chapters contain arguments and notes on what has come to be called "The Coase Theorem." Chapter five is the actual essay "The Problem of Social Cost" and chapter six contains a series of replies to various criticisms that have been directed at the arguments presented in "The Problem of Social Cost" essay.
   
   Clearly, the best aricles in this book are chapters two and five, "The Nature of the Firm" and "The Problem of Social Cost". As I mentioned earlier, Coase begins his analysis by asking a very novel and challenging question: If the price system works itself, as is conventionally taught, then why do we see firms? His answer is that there are costs to conducting transactions through the market. The two examples he gives in various forms are:
   
   1. discovering what the relevant prices are, since outside equilibrium the relevant prices are not known.
   
   2. The costs of negotiating and concluding contracts.
   
   To my disappointment, Coase inexplicably spends the rest of the essay extending the example of the costs of contractual arrangements. Now this is an important problem, but until the question of relevant prices is resolved, the problem of executing costly contracts seems to be almost insuperable because if we still have no way of discovering what the relevant prices are, then how can we measure the degree of costs involved in "negotiating and concluding contracts" (page 38)?
   
   I would have liked to see Coase concentrate his remarkable intellectual abilities on the first problem; namely, that of disovering what the relevant prices are. He mentions this problem just once, and then omits it from all subsequent discussions of costs and market transactions. I cannot make sense of this.
   
   This problem is carried into his other famous essay "The Problem of Social Cost". Now the economic analysis contained in this essay is both rigorous and logically consistent. Given certain prices, and given a world in which transaction costs are absent, it would seem superfluous to assign rights because they would simply be re-negotiated in a way which maximizes the social product. This world is a world of equilibrium, and in such a world we can presume that the relevant prices are known. What I like about this argument is that it demonstrates to the advocates of this model (equilibrium) that economists cannot simultaneously present theories of perfect competition and market failure. In a world of perfect competition, rights will be arranged in a way consistent with the maximization of the social product. It does not make any sense to speak of market failire in conditions of perfect equilibrium. We can use Coase's analysis and say to economists:
   
   "The nature of the choice is clear: [perfect competition] or [market failure]. What answer should be given is, of course, not clear unless we know the value of what is obtained as well as teh value of what is sacrificed to obtain it" (page 96).
   
   But when Coase does admit the existence of transaction costs into the analysis, he falls into the same error of assuming that the relevant prices are still known in such a world. He writes:
   
   "In earlier sections, when dealing with the problem of the rearrangement of legal rights through the market, I argued that such a rearrangement would be made through the market whenever this would lead to an increase in the value of production. But this assumed costless market transactions. Once the costs of carrying out market transactions are taken into account, it is clear that such a rearrangement of rights will only be undertaken when the increase in the value of production consequent upon the rearrangement is greater than the costs which would be involved in bringing it about" (page 115).
   
   This argument, while laudable in its emphasis on transaction costs, still begs the question. We first must know what the relevant prices are before we can compare the relative advantages of alternative sets of rights. I think Coase's argument would be strengthened considerably once these considerations are brought into clearer light. To my knowledge, this observation has yet to be made. Before we can speak of transaction "costs", it behooves us to know, as Coase recognized, what the relevant prices are. We could not speak of cost without first solving this very important problem.



5. The essays in this book are the foundation for New Institutional Economics. Coase arrived at a simple explanation for institutions: transaction costs. In 1937 Coase argued that organizations exist because of high transaction costs, or what he referred to as market costs. This 1937 article became chapter two. It also became the basis for the modern theory of the firm, as developed by Williamson, Demsetz, Fama, and many others.
   
   Coasean economics is important because it pushes us to make fair and realistic comparisons between private and public institutions. In 1959 Coase published an article on the Federal Communications Commission which demonstrated that market imperfections do not automatically imply the need for government regulation. Transaction costs make markets imperfect, but government suffers from its own imperfections. In 1969 Harold Demsetz explained the Coasean approach to institutional analysis in his "Institutions and Efficiency, another Viewpoint". Coase's opponents are guilty of committing the Nirvana Fallacy. Economists used to condemn markets for failing to deliver ideal conditions. Those who compare real imperfect markets to an idealized perfect government will always "prove" the need for government regulation. In reality, the nirvana of perfect government never exists, so the need for governmental intervention is always questionable.
   
   Unfortunately, this 1959 article did not make it into this book. Instead, Coase used his 1960 follow up paper "The Problem of Social Cost" (chapter five) to explain his ideas about law and economics. Chapter five explains "The Coase Theorem" and "The Invariance Proposition". The 1960 paper on social costs is an outgrowth of an informal debate between Coase and Milton Friedman. This is a rare instance where Friedman admitted defeat. Given Friedman's talent for debate, Coase's victory is not a small matter. Having proven his point to the satisfaction of the Chicago economics faculty, Coase was able to join this faculty and edit The Journal of Law and Economics. Not bad for an informal after-dinner debate.
   
   The reprinting of the Problem of Social Cost is important because so many economists misconstrue the Coase Theorem. Contrary to what many believe, Coase does not assume that transaction costs are zero. The idea of zero transaction costs is just a thought experiment. Coase saw little value in thought experiments. The real message from Coase is that we should focus on real examples where transaction costs are positive and vary. Good institutions are the ones that reduce transaction costs to a minimal level. Coase explains his position further in chapter six: notes on the problem of social cost. It is also important to guard against George Stigler's misinterpretation of Coase. The idea that all institutions are imperfect does not imply that we arrive at the least imperfect institutions.
   
   The Marginal Cost Controversy (Chapter Four) and the Lighthouse in Economics (chapter seven) are also notable. Coase demonstrated that Abba Lerner and Harold Hotelling were wrong about the need for government to subsidize firms with declining average costs. Besting Lerner and Hotelling is no small feat. In chapter seven Coase took on none other than John Stuart Mill. It turns out that lighthouses are not necessarily public goods. History and common sense show that entrepreneurs can supply lighthouses for profit.
   
   The Firm, the Market, and the Law is brilliant, but often misunderstood. This is hard to explain because it is highly readable and thought provoking. Some of its points are simple, others are subtle, but they are all well reasoned. Most of the misunderstandings about this book seem to derive from the fact that some people judge Coasean economics based on what they have heard, rather than from reading this book. While I do not agree with everything in this book, reading it (and re-reading it) has made me a better economist. All social scientists and legal scholars could benefit from reading The Firm, the Market, and the Law, if they have not read it already.

5 comments about Price Theory.

1. Price Theory is important in economics. Friedman has treated the subject very well in this book.



2. A serious book for serious students - no glossy pages, no color, and not a single wasted word. Friedman's book is the most authoritative and definitive textbook on Price Theory around. The material may be more difficult than some textbooks but this is, after all, economics Chicago style. Price Theory offers a rigorous and demanding treatment of the subject, exactly what a serious student should want.



3. I was lucky enough to take Dr. Friedman's two-quarter graduate sequence in price theory (called "microeconomics" elsewhere) in the early 70s at the University of Chicago. This book was the textbook. I have never revised my original opinion that Friedman's 301 and 302 were simply outstanding, maybe the best courses I ever had in economics.

   You can put that in perspective when I tell you I spent ten years at Chicago, earning both my bachelor's and PhD -- by this I mean I took a lot of economics courses. If you know anything about the Chicago School of Economics you are aware that price theory occupies a special place in their scheme of things.

   The good Doctor retired from Chicago around 1973 or 1974, if I am not mistaken (he moved to the Hoover Institution. You can't take "Milton" on price theory today -- but you can read his book. And it what a fine book it is. I recommend reading George Stigler's "The Theory of Price" before attemption this book. Master them both and you will have a very solid foothold on price theory.




4. When i studied microeconomics i paid too much attention on the "inner" sense of models (perfect and unperfect markets). But this way of studying keeps a student a little bit far from what really matters in any of them: its power to explain, its power to catch up essential features from social reality (in this case, essential features from flesh-and-bone markets). Well, this book helped me a lot to restore my sense of reality when i think of basic microeconomic concepts (demand and supply curves, marginal cost / productivity, etc.). Friedman has an intuitive approach to microeconomics. He shows that models are engines to think of economic reality, they are not by themselves the ultimate goals of economic science. Study models. Do it properly. If in the road you feel your mind lost, take back to this classic and make a review of your usual assumptions. Economics is mathematics, yes, but with economic sense what stands for good understanding of what it is being modelled.
   
   I strongly recommend to read this textbook in microeconomics before starting others, with a more mathematical approach.



5. This is one of the best texts on the core concepts of Economics that has ever seen the light of day. It is not easy going, so you should first master a more elementary text, like Paul Heyne's The Economic Way of Thinking Economic Way of Thinking, The (11th Edition), and maybe even an intermediate text, like the famous Exchange And Production Theory In Use by Alchian and Allen Exchange and Production Theory in Use, but whether you prepare only a little or prepare a lot, this is the frosting on the cake.
   
   It is truly unfortunate that Professor Friedman spent most of his professional life developing the macroeconomic and monetary literature, when he was so very lucid in the more important topics of price theory and political economy. But make use of the treats that he left us, even if they are far too few.

No comments about Microeconomics of Banking, 2nd Edition.

5 comments about Advanced Microeconomic Theory.

1. While the book is certainly aimed more at grad students, I've found it to be invaluable in my undergraduate studies. It delves deep into the analytical mathematics behind microeconomics, where Varian and Nicholson brush lightly across the surface.
   Good for both undergraduates and graduates. Familiarity with the structure of analytic mathematical arguments required. Not for the economically or mathematically faint-of-heart.



2. Firstable, this is a Graduate Micro book, nobody could properly say that it is not good if she is trying to get some stuff of this topic for the first time, this is not the goal of this book, it was created to make first year econ-grad students lives better.
   I used MWG (Mas Colell) for the first semester Micro of the Phd program and most of my partners and I hated it, it is so complicated and has some excessive and wording detail for even simple things, however I should recognize that it is more complete than the rest of books, now in the second Micro we're using Jehle and Reny and we love it, to be honest this is the best book in Micro now (according to my knowledge and point of view), we also use Silberberg sometimes (very good) and Varian (has a lot of gaps even though it is easy to understand too) but this is the best, it is not probably as complete as MWG but it is more neat, precise and far more understandable, general equilibrium part has one third of the pages of MWG but it is better, it doesn't have Offer curves neither other minor things but the proofs of existence of Walrasian equilibrium and the welfare theorems are incredibly powerful and far shorter than those of MWG. For Game Theory it is also very very good, clear and precise without excessive wording.
   I almost forgot....the Math appendix is the best I've ever found in any other Micro book, it gives you precisely what you need to get into the business.
   This book is like "pure gold" no regrets of any kind.
   Aldo.



3. This book is excellent. If you are a graduate student in economics I widely recommend it. I particullarly like the chapters on game theory, general equilibrium, asymmetric information, and auctions.



4. Modern mircroeconomics has focused on game theory and asymmetric information, and few textbooks on the market has explained these topics with the clarity and brevity this textbook has. Besides that, its explanation on the foundations of microeconomics (consumer, and production) is also top-notch. Even though it exposes readers only to the very core concepts, however, in my case, I found that it explains these concepts so well that I almost always choose to reference this book before any other textbook. This is a definite must have on your bookshelf.
   
   However, many reviewers are right, its math might be a bit technical if readers were never exposed to rigorous math such as real analysis. But do not worry, because all the necessary math is included in its appendix, which explains the technical details in a very intuitive manner.



5. This is an OK text that does a good job at covering most topics included in the usual first year Microeconomics course at many PhD programs. While as accessible as Varian's text, it tries to go for more of a MWG feel and to a certain extent it succeeds.
   
   On the other hand, it's hard to come up with reasons why someone should not just go ahead and pick up MWG instead: Mas-Colell covers more material, it's still the main text at top programs and it has better coverage of G.E. and the core, to name a couple of examples.

2 comments about Microeconomics with MyEconLab plus eBook 1-semester Student Access Kit (8th Edition) (MyEconLab Series).

1. I have never had a worse experience with a seller. This is the reason that people are told not to shop online. First of all, the seller forgot to ship my order. I contacted them and then they sent it out. The book finally arrived very late. The package was dirty and beaten up. I open up the package with dust spilling out and I don't even see a book. It's just a mess of unbinded pages of the book. What a waste! Do not trust this sellers conditions. In fact, do not buy anything from this seller.



2. This book is well written but to fully understand the concepts you should use the online addition, MyEconLab. MyEconLab has the homework solutions and more complete tutorials/problems. This wouldn't usually be a problem, but Myeconlab isn't very accessible. If you buy the book new you have access to it for only 6 months, which makes this useless for referencing. If you buy a book used (which I did) you have to buy it separately. Unfortunately this process isn't easy and the company, Pearsons, was very difficult to work with. After 2 weeks of e-mailing and calling customer service I never got a useful answer how to buy just MyEconLab (customer service over the phone said I couldn't and would have to buy a new book). Finally my 5th e-mail from the company, directed me online where I could buy it for $30, but I had already returned my used book by that time.
   
   Also, the my econlab plugins only work on windows systems. If you are a mac user and probably a windows vista user you are out of luck.
   
   If you are planning on teaching this class, please find another book for you students. This would give them an option of not having to buy a new book and having a complete reference book that isn't dependent on something that expires very quickly. Also, most students will not have the time and patience to deal with Pearsons if they have any issues with MyEconLab.

5 comments about Economics of Strategy.

1. I teach strategic management to undergraduates at an Australian university and have used the 2nd and 3rd editions of this book in the past three years to supplement the theory from our prescribed texts. It is heavy going in some places for the students but I like the book's rigour. The only criticism I have is that the 4th edition I just received has some minor errors. For example, pages 20-21 in the "Economic Profit versus Acccounting Profit" section has errors in the figures quoted for economic profit for McDonalds and Starbucks. I think this has occured because the 3rd edition figures have been carried over to the 4th edition without a proper proof-reading. Another minor mistake is that Table 10.2 (page 329) should read "Five-Forces Analysis of the Commercial Aciation Industry" and not "Five-Forces Analysis of the Chicago Hospital Market". Sorry to be pedantic but I guess these things can detract from the perceived quality of an otherwise top-quality text. Please note I will be buying your next edition in a couple of years. Cheers from "DownUnder Australia!"



2. The reviewer L. Skoufa is correct; there's an error on pages 20-21 of the first printing of this text. We're fixing it in subsequent printings. Sorry for the mistake, and thanks for pointing it out. The paragraph should read as follows:
   
   As discussed earlier, an important cost excluded from a firm's
   accounting costs is the opportunity cost of its capital assets, such
   as its plant and equipment. When a firm's accounting earnings do not
   cover this opportunity cost, the firm will earn a positive accounting
   profit but a negative economic profit. For example, in 2002
   McDonald's had a positive accounting income of more than $2 billion,
   but it had a negative economic profit of $124 million. (Table
   P.3. shows McDonald's economic profit, and that for other selected
   food and beverage chains, between 1997 and 2004.) What does this
   negative $124 million mean? Just as with the owner of our software
   firm, a negative accounting profit indicates that McDonald's assets,
   when liquidated and deployed elsewhere, would have earned $124 million
   more in income for its owners than McDonald's earned in 2002. In this
   sense, in 2002 McDonald's "destroyed" $124 million of its owners'
   wealth because its owners could have earned $124 million more that
   year by deploying the funds they had invested in Starbucks in their
   best alternative use. Not all firms, of course, make a negative
   economic profit. In 2004, Starbucks earned an accounting profit of
   slightly over $390 million and a positive economic profit of $151
   million. This positive econoimc profit means Starbucks created $151
   million more in income for its owners than its sources would have
   created for themselves if they liquidated Starbucks assets and
   invested them in their best alternative use. In this sense,
   Starbucks "created" an additional $151 million in wealth for its
   owners that they could not have gotten elsewhere.



3. This was the text used in a graduate Economic Strategy course I took. The text provides a decent overview of economic strategy and is only slightly more advanced than what I learned as an undergraduate. The math involved was elementary.
   
   The text attempts to cover a very broad range of topics and does not go into any single topic very deeply. For example, only 3-4 pages are used to cover Game Theory; pricing is another area that's covered at a very high level, with not much at all about price optimization, an area growing in importance in industry.
   
   I did think Porter's Five Forces were covered sufficiently, and the watch-outs of such an approach were reviewed which is important in a class where the students were asked to test many of the topics empirically.
   
   In all, a good text to provide a broad overview of many sub-topics, but don't count on it for a rigorous review.



4. This is an excellent MBA first book through strategy. It covers not only the classic facts on competition, markets and so forth but also the economics of gambling, acquisitions and marketing strategy.
   
   It is ever full of examples, and very easy to read.
   
   It is used in most of the best MBA courses in US.



5. The third party who Amazon partnered with in sending the product was very good with the price, and the delivery was okay in that it takes a week to arrive. The Book was new just as promised. The textbook is fine for any one interested in economics involving management. It's more micro-economics than it is macro-economics. It involves more on financial management of companies. This book is all text and no pictures and very few charts. Having some background would be helpful in reading this book.

5 comments about Economics Micro & Macro (CliffsAP).

1. Perhaps i shouldn't be complaining because i didn't actually take a microecon course and i'm trying to wing the test by using this book. however, i found this book confusing and poorly organized becuase there are times when terminology isn't consistent and i feel like i'm reading a bunch of random essays put together. fragmented lessons with things in between. one good thing about this book is that there are a few chapters that are written very well and are very clear. however, the more confusing topics have confusing chapters. i wish i hadn't bought this book and that i'd gotten a different one.



2. Haven't reviewed the book as yet but am looking forward to using the Cliff Notes in conjuction with an AP Macro and Micro Ecomonics book to prepare for a CLEP test.



3. I guess I shouldn't be complaining because I was attempting to pass the macroeconomics CLEP exam with the AP cliff notes book. The reason I was doing this is because I could not find a study guide for it. So if you are looking for a CLEP study guide don't get this book, I did pass with a 54 and I needed a 50, but it was pure luck.



4. This book was horrible. I bought it for the practice tests, and not only did they repeat the same questions in the same tests on occasion, there were many cases where words were mispelled, or key parts of the problems (such as graphs) were left out completely. This book was of shoddy construction and should be avoided as a tool to study for the economics exams.



5. This book has good graphs and short descriptions, especially if you're looking for the quick definition of an economics term, but overall, it is too general and not helpful enough when you are studying for the AP Economics exam. I used it to review, but the book did not go into enough detail to really be of use to me. Also, there were many instances where the notes in the CliffsAP book contradicted with what I had learned in my economics course and in various impressive, reliable textbooks.
   I do not recommend using this book. It was quite a waste. I have heard that "5 Steps to a 5 on the AP exam" is better.