Microeconomic Theory: An Integrated Approach

by Stephen Mathis

This book, which focuses on the fundamentals of microeconomic theory, presents an integrated approach to solving decision-making problems. Concepts are developed by using several tools: words, graphs,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0130114189
• ISBN13: 9780130114181
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Pearson
• Length: 704 Pages
• Weight: 2.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 7.7" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

This book is THE reason I passed the class

Last semester, I had to take a graduate level economics course having never even taken intermediate economics. (My program has weird requirements.) The book used in the class was Varian's Microeconomic Analysis. I can't say whether that was a good or bad book for someone with much more preparation. But for me, it was totally incomprehensible since I hadn't come across any of that stuff before. On the recommendations of others, I checked out Nicholson's book, hoping it would give me the background needed to just pass the class. I found Nicholson's book to be disappointing, with many derivations stuck in footnotes. I should, however, mention, that the Nicholson copy I was given was of an older edition, so I'm not sure if the newer editions are better. Anyway, I was feeling so desperate and by chance came across this book in the library. That day, my semester took a huge turn for the better. I finally could solve optimization problems! I finally understood the derivation of the Slutsky equation! Mathis and Kocianski explain everything SO clearly. Furthermore, they give you "cookbook recipes" for how to solve many of the problems you're likely to get on exams and homeworks. The problems I had to solve for homework and on exams were much more complicated, but the complicated part was in the details. The basic process to solve the problems was actually the same as the examples in the Mathis book. Once you master that process with Mathis's examples, you can generalize it to harder and more complicated problems. Mathis and Koscianski also show you how the problem of the consumer is not unlike the problem of the firm, and problems of general equilibrium simply combine the two. In other words, they do a great job of showing the bigger picture while still teaching you the math involved. Speaking of the math, this book requires calculus, unlike most intermediate textbooks. Yet the material is so clearly presented that I find the derivations to be easier to follow than in many intermediate textbooks. Furthermore, the authors don't unnecessarily complicate things by overloading on notation.

Very useful introduction to microeconomics using calculus

This is a very special book. Nowadays, most introductory textbooks on microeconomics teach intuitions and models that are carefully designed to avoid the use of even basic calculus as much as possible. This is not necessarily a bad thing because most college students don't have much calculus. However, for those that have even a basic understanding of calculus, there is a lot to be gained by studying basic microeconomics using mathematical tools. This is the rare introductory text specifically designed to teach using calculus. This is refreshing and can be quite exciting for advanced high school students, undergraduates, and even masters candidates who would like to use math to be introduced to utility theory, consumer optimization, market demand curves, demand elasticities, short and long run production issues, firm optimization, short and long run costs of production, market structures including monopoly, issues related to input markets, and equilibrium analysis. Really, the use of math here does aid understanding. The writing is clear, the illustrations are helpful, and the equations are quite understandable even if you only have calc 1 in your repertoire. Take a look, I think you will like it and get real value from it.

Very good overview of microeconomic theory

When I took intermediate microeconomics I was assigned Microeconomics by Hal Varian, which from what I gather is the predominate book used by professors, however it shouldn't be. This book is a far better handling of intermediate micro than is the Varian book, or any others that I've seen for that matter. Most undergraduate books that I have seen shy away from using calculus to explain the theories, which is really unfortunate because calculus makes this fascinating field far less cumbersome and much more accessible. The first two chapters on reviewing calculus for economics are great and really help clarify the relevance of calculus to economics. I find that utilizing calc makes microeconomics a much easier field to understand and this book does that very well. The only complaint is that I have noticed a few errors here and there, like mislabeled graphs or a few misreferences to the wrong graphical explanations, but it is easy enough to realize from the context, it would be nice if these weren't there, but overall this is the best book for microeconomic theory I have seen.