I'm writing to thank so many of you for your interest in Modern Principes: Microeconomics, Modern Principles: Macroeconomics, and the two-in-one edition. Alex and I have been pleased to see how many of you have adopted the book or shown interest in it; all the books are doing great and thanks to your interest. Translations to other languages are already in the works.
Here are a few of my favorite things Modern Principles:
1. It has the most thorough treatment of the interconnectedness of markets and the importance of the price system; most texts only pay lip service to this.
2. It is the most Hayekian of the texts on micro theory without in any way ignoring the importance of externalities, public goods and other challenges to markets.
3. It has an entire chapter on ethics and economics. We do present economics as a value-free science, yet we all know how much ethics shapes people's economics views. The book helps the student sort out common confusions and explains the ethical presuppositions behind many "economic" arguments.
4. It has an entire chapter on incentives and incentive design (e.g. piece rates, tournaments, pay for performance). Oddly, many micro books do not discuss this crucial topic.
5. International examples–from Algeria to Zimbabwe–are written into the core of the book and not just ghettoized in a single "international chapter."
6. It is obsessed with the idea of teaching students to think like economists.
7. It is grounded in the belief that reading an economics text should be fun, not a chore.
8. It has balanced coverage of neo-Keynesian and real business cycle approaches.
9. It covers Solow "catch-up" growth, and Paul Romer's increasing returns, much more thoroughly than do the other texts. The macro book (section) starts off with the idea of why growth matters and is central to macroeconomics.
10. The financial crisis was written into the core of the book, rather than being absent or treated as an add-on. This means for instance plenty of coverage of financial intermediation and asset price bubbles.
11. The book's blog, a teaching tool with lots of videos, powerpoints and other ideas for keeping teaching exciting, is lots of fun and updated regularly (FYI, this is a great resource for any instructor of economics.)
In addition, of course, there is a full range of supplements including lecture powerpoints, test banks, student's guide, Aplia support and coming in the fall EconPortal (even better than Aplia, IMHO).
Between the econ blogs, like MR, and your book’s blog, it is easy and inexpensive for anyone with Internet access to get educamated about economics.
Another confirmation that the world continues to change for the better.
Alex and Tyler, I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and your optimism.
I am curious about point #6, teaching students how to think like an economist. How does your book do this? I teach in a neighboring discipline, political science, and this is an area where intro text fail miserably. Rather they focus too much on facts.
Will the upcoming portal also have experiments (like Aplia)?
A lot of goodies seem to be in the “instructor only” part of the book website. Too bad I’m not one! Is there a “non-gated” version!?
EconPortal will launch soon. More info here:
http://courses.bfwpub.com/youreconportal/about.php
Sorry, Rahul but if there were non-gated versions of things like the test bank the students would know all the answers!
kinda shitty linking to the 150 buck publisher’s link when Amazon has new copies for 120 (and used for 60)
I’ll pick it up for 3 bucks once the 2nd edition comes out
Does it come in an iPad friendly format? If not, here’s a market you should lead the way in Tyler.
Mankiws book is only available via the lousy Course Smart app
Do you know of similar treatment of modern macro at a slightly more advanced level? There seems to be a big gap between intermediate and advanced economics textbooks.
Sounds like a great book, love to read it, but golly it’s expensive!
Optimism is great, but I was pondering how the society that gave us Plato is bankrupt, the largest economy is in deep Shih Tzu, and the oldest civilization has only recently decided to be civilized.
Comments on this entry are closed.