This 2004 textbook explores how markets operate and governments' roles in addressing market failures.

Younger brother to a rock star joins a survival reality show to step out from behind his brother's shadows. A small town girl falls in love with him on the spot but he has no idea.

This book examines the implications of The General Theory of Second Best for analyzing the economic efficiency of non-government conduct or government policies in an economically efficient way. It develops and legitimates an economically efficient economic-efficiency-analysis protocol with three unique characteristics: First, the protocol focuses separately on each of a wide variety of categories of economic inefficiency, many of which conventional analyses ignore. Second, it analyzes the impact of conduct or policies on each of these categories of economic inefficiency, primarily by predicting the respective conduct’s/policy’s impact on the distortion that the economy’s various Pareto imperfections generate in the profits yielded by the resource allocations associated with the individual categories of economic inefficiency—i.e., on the difference between their profitability and economic efficiency. And third, it is third-best—i.e., it instructs the analyst to execute a theoretical or empirical research project if and only if the economic-efficiency gains the project is expected to generate by increasing the accuracy of economic-efficiency conclusions exceed the predicted allocative cost of its execution and public financing. The book also uses the protocol to analyze the economic efficiency of specific policies so as to illustrate both how it differs from the protocols that most applied welfare economists continue to use and how its conclusions differ from those produced by standard analysis.

John Maynard Keynes is the great British economist of the twentieth century whose hugely influential work The General Theory of Employment, Interest and * is undoubtedly the century's most important book on economics--strongly influencing economic theory and practice, particularly with regard to the role of government in stimulating and regulating a nation's economic life. Keynes's work has undergone significant revaluation in recent years, and "Keynesian" views which have been widely defended for so long are now perceived as at odds with Keynes's own thinking. Recent scholarship and research has demonstrated considerable rivalry and controversy concerning the proper interpretation of Keynes's works, such that recourse to the original text is all the more important. Although considered by a few critics that the sentence structures of the book are quite incomprehensible and almost unbearable to read, the book is an essential reading for all those who desire a basic education in economics. The key to understanding Keynes is the notion that at particular times in the business cycle, an economy can become over-productive (or under-consumptive) and thus, a vicious spiral is begun that results in massive layoffs and cuts in production as businesses attempt to equilibrate aggregate supply and demand. Thus, full employment is only one of many or multiple macro equilibria. If an economy reaches an underemployment equilibrium, something is necessary to boost or stimulate demand to produce full employment. This something could be business investment but because of the logic and individualist nature of investment decisions, it is unlikely to rapidly restore full employment. Keynes logically seizes upon the public budget and government expenditures as the quickest way to restore full employment. Borrowing the * to finance the deficit from private households and businesses is a quick, direct way to restore full employment while at the same time, redirecting or siphoning

In this book, Professor Kreps presents a first course on the basic models of choice theory that underlie much of economic theory. This course, taught for several years at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, gives the student an introduction to the axiomatic method of economic analysis, without placing too heavy a demand on mathematical sophistication.The course begins with the basics of choice and revealed preference theory and then discusses numerical representations of ordinal preference. Models with uncertainty come next: First is von Neumann?Morgenstern utility, and then choice under uncertainty with subjective uncertainty, using the formulation of Anscombe and Aumann, and then sketching the development of Savage's classic theory. Finally, the course delves into a number of special topics, including de Finetti's theorem, modeling choice on a part of a larger problem, dynamic choice, and the empirical evidence against the classic models.

The Theory of the Firm presents an innovative general analysis of the economics of the firm.

Economists have a bad reputation. Not only do they assume that everyone is self-interested and amoral, they are almost always cheerleaders for the free market. As a result, most people who do not already share their beliefs ignore everything that economists have to say. This is a problem. Even among the highly educated, economics is a minefield of fallacies and errors. Among those who know little about the subject—a group that includes the average taxpayer and consumer, as well as most journalists, political activists and politicians—almost every widely held belief is false. The level of economic illiteracy is stunning. Filthy Lucre aims to level the playing field and, in this time of enormous market volatility and unprecedented instability, raise our level of economic literacy. Drawing on everyday examples to skewer the six favourite economic fallacies of the right and then the left, we learn why the right wing so wrongly believes that capitalism is the natural order of things, that any tax cut is a good tax cut, and that personal responsibility can solve any problem. And, contrary to how the left feels, why we must resist the urge to fiddle with prices, why the pursuit of profit is not such a bad thing, and why, despite efforts to improve or even fix wages, some jobs will always suck.

In the present text the author deals with both conventional and new approaches to trade theory and policy, treating all important research topics in international economics and clarifying their mathematical intricacies. The textbook is intended for undergraduates, graduates and researchers alike. It addresses undergraduate students with extremely clear language and illustrations, making even the most complex trade models accessible. In the appendices, graduate students and researchers will find self-contained treatments in mathematical terms. The new edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the latest research on international trade.

Krugman examines the course of economic geography and development theory to shed light on the nature of economic inquiry.

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.