Book Description

Macroeconomic Theory, in its first edition, was widely adopted for use as a graduate text; this updated and expanded version should find even greater popularity as a text and as a research reference. It has been substantially revised to include three entirely new chapters:The Consumption Function, Government Debt and Taxes, and Dynamic Optimal Taxation.Significant additions have been made to three of the original chapters dealing with difference equations, stochastic difference equations, and investment under uncertainty.

Key Features
* This book has been substantially revised to include three entirely new chapters on consumption, government debt and taxes, and dynamic optimal taxation
* Significant additions have been made to three of the original chapters dealing with difference equations, stochastic difference equations, and investment under uncertainty ... Read more

Reviews (1)

What a "hard bone"
I have the Chinese version of the book, and I find it difficult to read through it, although the author of the book did not apply advanced mathematics. ... Read more

Book Description

This is the first major study of post-Civil War banking panics in almost a century.The author has constructed for the first time estimates of bank closures and their incidence in each of the five separate banking disturbances.The author also reevaluates the role of the New York Clearing House in forestalling several panics and explains why it failed to do so in 1893 and 1907, concluding that structural defects of the National Banking Act were not the primary cause of the panics. ... Read more

Book Description

Written by leading economists including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, this collection combines rigorous economic analysis with insider perspectives on key policy debates surrounding the future of the International Monetary Fund.As the role of the IMF and the "Washington Consensus" have come under intense scrutiny, this collection offers a valuable wide-ranging overview of the debate, making it an essential reference for anyone interested in the role of international financial institutions in our globalized economy. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Stick to the Tulips
This is not a good text book. The troubles start on the back cover where the face of Ricky "Tricky" Van Der Ploeg stares at me. The exposition is cluttered and there is an obsession with the word intermezzo throughout.

an excellent book
While I was teaching a graduate level core macroeconomics course, I found that reference books are very limited. These include Blanchard & Fischer's book, Barro & Sala-i-Martin's book and Obstfeld & Rogoff's book. After I found a copy of this book, I immediately realized this book is very well written, and should be added to the above list. By reading this book, one can not only learn many insightful points and advanced technics, but also can have a good survey of literatrue in many areas. I suggest that anyone in the field of macroeconomics buy a copy (by the way, I believe David Romer's book is very badly written,I think Romer himself is technically weak). ... Read more

Book Description

For the Third Edition, 2001 Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz joins forces with new co-author Carl Walsh, who brings both economic expertise and teaching savvy to the project. Together, Stiglitz and Walsh thoroughly integrate contemporary economics into the traditional curriculum. Recognizing the limitations of the traditional AS/AD model, the authors offer an improved framework for the analysis of macroeconomic fluctuations. This approach emphasizes the role of the Fed and the federal funds market in the determination of short-term interest rates. The result is an analysis of fluctuations in inflation/output space and a model reflecting the real world of macroeconomics that students encounter in the business press and other media. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A excellent study of macroeconmics
Joseph Stiglitz has written an excellent introduction to macroeconomics, including a complete introduction to ISLM economic theory at full employment and with significant unemployment.There is an excellent introduction to monetary theory by this nobel laureate economist and former official of the World Bank. This is a book that undergraduates students and teachers can appreciate.Conservative proponents should recognize that learning from a master economist no less worthy than appreciating the wisdom J.M. Keynes or James Tobin.

most biased, left-wing econ book out there
Sitglit-Walsh macroecon book is the most biased econ text in the market. It is riddled with conceptual mistakes (I'm an econ professor), and the fundamentals are presented with flaws. One sales rep told me that the book is really meant to serve the liberal, left-wing leaning students/instructors.We had to chunk the book in the middle of the semester and went with another. What a waste of money for students and my time. ... Read more

Book Description

The Power of Microeconomics and The Power of Macroeconomics offer clear, easy-to-understand lectures on principles of economics topics.The software provides attractive and illustrative PowerPoint visuals to help explain these topics.The Power of Microeconomics and The Power of Macroeconomics have both been thoroughly class-tested.Either CD can be combined with any of our economics texts, a guide, and Peter Navarro's self-monitored website to provide a true distance learning course.The website provides 24-hour access, response, and a multiple-choice testing for whichever principles text chosen.

A Learning Guide is available 0-07-239631-8.This guide instructs both the faculty, who is directing the distance learning, and the student as to how to use the text in conjunction with the website and the CD.The guide directs the student to related content in whichever McGraw-Hill/Irwin text chosen. ... Read more

Book Description

A crucial challenge for economists is figuring out how people interpret the world and form expectations that will likely influence their economic activity. Inflation, asset prices, exchange rates, investment, and consumption are just some of the economic variables that are largely explained by expectations. Here George Evans and Seppo Honkapohja bring new explanatory power to a variety of expectation formation models by focusing on the learning factor. Whereas the rational expectations paradigm offers the prevailing method to determining expectations, it assumes very theoretical knowledge on the part of economic actors. Evans and Honkapohja contribute to a growing body of research positing that households and firms learn by making forecasts using observed data, updating their forecast rules over time in response to errors. This book is the first systematic development of the new statistical learning approach.

Depending on the particular economic structure, the economy may converge to a standard rational-expectations or a "rational bubble" solution, or exhibit persistent learning dynamics. The learning approach also provides tools to assess the importance of new models with expectational indeterminacy, in which expectations are an independent cause of macroeconomic fluctuations. Moreover, learning dynamics provide a theory for the evolution of expectations and selection between alternative equilibria, with implications for business cycles, asset price volatility, and policy. This book provides an authoritative treatment of this emerging field, developing the analytical techniques in detail and using them to synthesize and extend existing research. ... Read more

Book Description

Recent intellectual advances in the theory of uncertainty and information are presented in this book, which unifies many important but partial results into a satisfying single picture, making it clear how the economics of uncertainty and information generalizes and extends standard economic analysis. Part 1 covers the economics of uncertainty: each person adapts to a given fixed state of knowledge by making an optimal choice among the immediate "terminal" actions available. These choices in turn determine the overall market equilibrium reflecting the social distribution of risk-bearing.In Part 2, covering the economics of information, the state of knowledge is no longer held fixed, and individuals can overcome their ignorance by "informational" actions.The text also addresses many specific topics such as insurance, the Capital Asset Pricing Model, auctions, deterrence of entry, and research and invention. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Difficult but worthwhile read
Firstly, this book is not a book for a novice to economics, and as an economics graduate, I found this a challenging book to read. If you are a mathematics major, you might also want to consider this book. That being said, the theories expressed in this book are truely phenomenal. Anyone with an interest or background in transactions cost economic theory will be both at an advantage, and will have a deep appreciation for the contents of this book.

This book comes in two halves. The first deals with situations where an individual has limited information, and derives some generalised theories about how individuals choose actions to obtain a probability density function of alternatives (since outcomes are not fully known). The second half of this book deals with situations where an agent can partake in information gathering activities to reduce the risk involved in the action-consequence connection.

This is a tough book, not for the faint of heart. But it is an incredibly worthwhile book. And as I said earlier, a background in economics (or *possibly* mathematics) is essential. Easily worth the money paid. ... Read more

Book Description

Books in Barron’s EZ–101 Study Keys series resemble clear, concise sets of classroom lecture notes for 101-level college courses. As such they are ideal student aids and brush-up reviews before exams. The revised and updated edition of EZ–101 Macroeconomics reviews the scope of economics, basic economic concepts, macroeconomic concepts, measuring economic activity, economic indicators and statistics, equilibrium output and income, fiscal policy, money, financial markets, and the banking system. ... Read more

Book Description

In Consumer Culture Reborn, Martyn J. Lee analyzes consumption as the place where economy and culture converge. Lee takes as his central theme the ability of capitalist production to transform the material and social world which sustains it. He also charts the rise and fall of the ``first'' mass consumption society of the post-war years, considering the new consumer society today and exploring more specifically how the organization of economic affairs has profound consequences for the formation of everyday culture. ... Read more

Book Description

Poverty may have always been with us, but it hasn't always been the same. In an in-depth look at trends, patterns, and causes of poverty in the United States, John Iceland combines the latest statistical information, historical data, and social scientific theory to provide a comprehensive picture of poverty in America--a picture that shows how poverty is measured and understood and how this has changed over time, as well as how public policies have grappled with poverty as a political issue and an economic reality.

Why does poverty remain so pervasive? Is it unavoidable? Are people from particular racial or ethnic backgrounds or family types inevitably more likely to be poor? What can we expect over the next few years? What are the limits of policy? These are just a few of the questions this book addresses. In a remarkably concise, readable, and accessible format, Iceland explores what the statistics and the historical record, along with most of the major works on poverty, tell us. At the same time, he advances arguments about the relative nature and structural causes of poverty--arguments that eloquently contest conventional wisdom about the links between individual failure, family breakdown, and poverty in America. At a time when the personal, political, social, and broader economic consequences of poverty are ever clearer and more pressing, the depth and breadth of understanding offered by this handbook should make it an essential resource and reference for all scholars, politicians, policymakers, and people of conscience in America. ... Read more

Book Description

When the first version of this book came out in 1996, on the heels of "Welfare Reform," it was received with great popular acclaim. As Jim Hightower put it, "At last, the real welfare scandal [is] revealed in one handy little -volume."

But the scandal was still in the making. The total amount of taxpayers' money going to subsidize corporations and rich individuals has grown from about $448 billion to over $800 billion-and the amount of that tax money that comes from those flush companies and individuals continues to shrink.

In this greatly expanded and updated version of Take the Rich off Welfare, Mark Zepezauer still details who's on the government dole and how much they're getting. This time around, though, he has slowed down his rapid firing of the latest names and numbers in order to reveal how it all works. Using accessible language and revealing graphics, he takes the time to explain how programs once intended to profit the public have been warped to benefit only the corporate bottom line; how administrations manipulate the tax code to slide their extortion from the bottom half past congressional oversight; and how the politicians from both parties employ budget doubletalk and paper trickery to make it look as if the economy isn't being sucked further into a sinkhole in order to line the pockets of the few.

A prolific writer of humorous but cutting analyses of government policy and its fallout, Zepezauer provides us with the tools we need to expose the political chicanery of current and past administrations, and make it much more difficult for politicians to play Three Card Monte with our money and our future. To the rallying cry of fiscal conservatives who claim that government must shrink, Zepezauer offers an easy answer. Shrink you.

Mark Zepezauer has worked as a journalist, editor and publisher since 1985. His articles, columns and reviews have appeared in the Village Voice, In These Times and the Arizona Daily Star. Zepezauer also wrote two Real Story books (now published by South End Press): The CIA's Greatest Hits (1994) and the first version of Take the Rich Off Welfare (1996), which have sold over 25,000 and 22,000 copies respectively.

Reviews (7)

Oink Oink
Before the welfare reform bill of 1996, genuine welfare was about 130 billion dollars per year, including food stamps, AFDC, housing assistance, WIC, Head Start, Low-income energy assistance, JOBS, Legal Services corporation, Medicaid, SSI, Pell grants, and the EITC. Altruistic behavior, of course, enrages conservatives, along with legitimate concerns, such as the Department of Education losing 450 million dollars in a three year time frame.

Meanwhile, the rich are quietly gorging at the trough.

The authors discover that "wealthfare" -- the money we hand out to corporations and wealthy Montgomery Burns types -- is at LEAST 448 BILLION dollars a year. To ensure not being accused of "bias," they consistently use conservative figures, thus leaving the real number far greater.

Their presentation is effective. Well cited, they address the orgy of waste and fraud in the "neglected" Pentagon, Social Security inequities generated from Reagan's sneaky regressive mega-tax hike on working people, phony accelerated depreciations (e.g. the NEGATIVE tax rates many corporations get away with), the S&L bailout we're still paying for, subsidies to nuclear, mining, timber, gas, oil, aviation, handouts to the media giants, insurance loopholes, and much more! Quite a lot for such a little book. A job well done!

This IS the "pinko's" view of the tax code. After all, it's socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor....

A pinko's view of the tax code
I guess this is what passes for a thoughtful review of the tax code for a liberal. I'm sure the author has no desire to give "tax breaks" to individuals any more than those greedy corporations. Besides attacking expense deductions as a "tax break," the class-warfare demagoguery always ignores the ultimate beneficiary of tax breaks to corporations, which are the company's workers and its stockholder. Oh yeah, the stockholders are just greedy rich people anyway, right?

Short and to the point!
The next time some smug nabob starts muttering under his/her breath about the drain on our economy caused by the proverbial 'welfare mother' (you know, the one that's driving the Cadillac), you can put em' in their place armed with the wealth of info contained in this short but well written little book.

As 'Take the Rich Off Welfare' aptly points out, welfare really does suck a lot of money from our treasury, but it's not the poor and needy in this country that benefits from this bonanza. As a matter of fact the word 'wealthfare' is more applicable, because that's who's really benefiting- the wealthy.

Very brief, but meticulously researched and with sources to back up every fact, 'Take the Rich off Welfare' is a great introduction to the big wide world of graft in America. If you've ever been curious about who has their foot in the back door of the treasury- check out this fine book.

Enraging and revealing study of subsidies,etc. to the rich.
This is the most comprehensive summary of tax write-offs, subsidies and other welfare schemes favoring the affluent and powerful that I have ever encountered. Well documented! Should enrage the average tax payer.

Oh, one example disproves a whole book, I see....
The reader below has missed the point. This is a marvelous book that would be beneficial for every American to read. ... Read more

Book Description

The authors—two highly respected economists and educators—have revised this best-selling book to include more current topics and events while maintaining its hallmark features. The macro split has a SHORT RUN FIRST organization with updated data and policy issues throughout. The AD/AS MODEL is placed late in the macro discussion. Starting with an introduction to economics, this book looks at concepts and problems in macroeconomics, the goods and money markets, macroeconomic analysis, and the world economy. Financial professionals making pecuniary decisions and analyses. ... Read more

Book Description

Comforting terms such as "sustainable development" and "green production" frame environmental debate by stressing technology (not green enough), economic growth (not enough in the right places), and population (too large). Concern about consumption emerges, if at all, in benign ways--as calls for green purchasing or more recycling, or for small changes in production processes. Many academics, policymakers, and journalists, in fact, accept the economists view of consumption as nothing less than the purpose of the economy. Yet many people have a troubled, intuitive understanding that tinkering at the margins of production and purchasing will not put society on an ecologically and socially sustainable path.

Confronting Consumption places consumption at the center of debate by conceptualizing "the consumption problem" and documenting diverse efforts to confront it. In Part 1, the book frames consumption as a problem of political and ecological economy, emphasizing core concepts of individualization and commoditization. Part 2 develops the idea of distancing and examines transnational chains of consumption in the context of economic globalization. Part 3 describes citizen action through local currencies, home power, voluntary simplicity, ad-busting, and product certification. Together, the chapters propose "cautious consuming" and "better producing" as an activist and policy response to environmental problems. The book concludes that confronting consumption must become a driving focus of contemporary environmental scholarship and activism. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Best Book in Global Environmental Affairs
This award-winning book ("The Best Book in Global Environmental Affairs" according to the International Studies Association) offers an accessible and engaging analysis of the 800 pound gorilla in the living room that environmentalists find difficult to talk about with force: overconsumption. The early portion of the book documents the problem; the middle chunk offers a set of mental lenses for making sense of our quandry; and the final chapters offer real-life stories of actors and movements (the voluntary simplicity movement, for example, and the home power and local currency movements too) challenging the upward escalating trajectory of the consumption of "stuff."

What's especially helpful about the book -- in addition to its "something for everyone" flavor -- is that it moves beyond simplistic prescriptions to "squash advertising" or "buy recycled products." Indeed, it is rather skeptical of these measures, which it tends to view as diversionary activities meant to take our eye off the underlying forces at war with the planet. Instead, it offers strategies for coming together collectively to challenge broader powers and structures that make it so difficult for people worried about the future of the planet to live more with less. ... Read more

Book Description

The essays included here are the "best sellers" of American economic history, the articles and chapters that most frequently appear on the syllabi of American economic history courses. Introductions add context, provide critical questions about the arguments and evidence, indicate important subsequent works, and suggest additional readings.Also included are a glossary and an appendix that provide a clear, simple introduction to regression analysis, necessary for reading the increasingly technical "cliometric" articles in the field. ... Read more

Book Description

This text is an introduction to international economics for upper-level undergraduates and above. The first half examines the causes and effects of international trade, how tariffs and other trade policies affect the gains from trade, and the ways in which governments try collectively to regulate those policies. The second half deals with monetary matters--the behavior of exchange rates, how trade and capital flows affect the functioning of monetary and fiscal policies, the causes and management of currency crises, and the new European monetary union. This fourth edition assesses the outcome of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations, the work of the new World Trade Organization (WTO), and the challenges posed by regional trade blocs. A problem set follows each chapter. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A great reference
This book is almost alla student of economics must have in order to face international economy with solid basis. However, it is only a firstapproach and it would be useful to consult other good texts like Appleyard& Field`s or even the Krugman ones which is quite elemental. If you tryit, you won`t feel disappointed. ... Read more

Book Description

Wealth ownership in the United States has long been concentrated in the hands of a small minority of the population. Because of scarce data on wealth ownership, the nature of wealth ownership distribution and knowledge about wealth inequality has received relatively little attention from social scientists. Keister synthesizes theory and data from various sources to present a detailed picture of household wealth distribution from 1962-1995.Utilizing existing survey data and a unique simulation model, the author isolates and examines processes that create this distribution, paying particular attention to the wealth ownership and accumulation of top wealth holders, those who control the bulk of household wealth. The results underscore the importance of wealth as an indicator of well-being, identify important causes of wealth inequality, and propose methods of lessening the recent increase in the concentration of wealth. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Examining Wealth with the Aid of Statistical Models
"Wealth in America" is a fascinating book, examining not only the state of wealth as it stands presently, but also looking at trends over time. The first chapter looks at what wealth is, how it has been studied to date, and then presents how the rest of the book is structured. The second chapter looks at the various studies available on wealth, the issues that arise with wealth measurement, and the pros and cons of the models that the author will use throughout the book. It is these simulation models that render this book unique, allowing the author to consider various trends and examine different possibilities that could otherwise only be speculated about.

For the general reader, things get interesting in chapter three: Here we take a look at who owns how much, in what categories, as well as different general trends over time and up and down the wealth scale. Chapter four focuses on the wealth of the very rich: the composition of their wealth and liabilities, the characteristics of wealthy households, and the effect that race has on wealth accumulation. Chapter five looks at the middle class and the poor. The bar graph on page 125 really brings home how little of the assets the bottom 90% of the population controls versus the top ten percent. Chapter six looks at how baby boomers have fared in comparison to their parents and projects how they may do in their coming retirement years. Chapter seven looks at the role of stock market and real estate fluctuations on wealth holdings, as well as the impact that government policies can have. Chapter eight focuses on the impact that age, race, education and other life events have on wealth accumulation and ownership. Chapter nine examines the prospects for moving from one segment of wealth ownership to a greater or lesser one. The final chapter then wraps up with some general conclusions.

Through out the book, the author is explicit about her use of simulation models to make projections as to where different trends might take us. However, when possible, the author is also very careful to also compare her models against actual data, so that it is clear that the discrepancies are minor. I would have liked to have seen a greater breakdown of the assets and liabilities of the middle class and poor, as well a greater examination of their saving and accumulation behavior (or lack of), but perhaps this is material for another book.

This book is not easy reading, but for someone who is willing to put in a little effort, this book contains a treasure trove of information on wealth that is not readily found elsewhere. I would certainly recommend it to someone with an interest in the subject.

Forget income, look at wealth inequality!
In this scholarly and provocative book, Lisa Keister argues that social scientists have been so caught up in studying occupational mobility and income attainment that they have missed the central feature of the social landscape in America: wealth is extremely unequally distributed and shows little sign of being redistributed equally. In 1995, the top 1% of wealth owners owned about two-fifths of net worth and nearly half of all financial wealth. By contrast, the bottom 60% owned less than 5% of net worth and had basically NO financial wealth.

Keister painstakingly assembled a massive data set from various surveys and government reports, covering the period 1962-1995. In addition to analyzing the actual data, she also built simulation models that allowed her to model the processes underlying changes over time. The simulation models also allowed her to perform "what if" scenarios. For example, she showed that the very high threshhold for estate taxes is probably the single biggest contributor to the perpetuation of wealth inequality across generations. She was also able to show that, contrary to what many commentators have claimed, the baby boomer generation adopted various strategies that have enabled them to do better, economically, than their parents.

I highly recommend this book to scholars interested in trends in wealth inequality, and to public policy makers who might wish to do something about it. Keister relegated much of the technical details to an Appendix, but the book will still be heavy going for the statistically challenged. Nonetheless, upper level college and graduate students taking courses in social inequality, political economy, public policy, social and economic justice, and related fields would benefit enormously from reading this book. ... Read more

Book Description

A survey of the new theories of inflation that have developed over the past two decades in response to the inflationary pressures experienced by Western countries examines the shifting debate from explaining inflation as a "causal" process to explaining its increase as a result of constantly changing expectations. ... Read more

Book Description

It once took two decades to replace one-third of the Fortune 500; now a subset of new firms are challenging and displacing this elite group at a breathtaking rate, while armies of startups come and go within just a few years. Most new jobs are, in fact, coming from small firms, reversing the trend of a century. David Audretsch takes a close look at the U.S. economy in motion, providing a detailed and systematic investigation of the dynamic process by which industries and firms enter into markets, either grow and survive, or disappear. He shapes a clear understanding of the role that small, entrepreneurial firms play in this evolutionary process and in the asymmetric size distribution of firms in the typical industry.

Audretsch introduces the large longitudinal database maintained by the U.S. Small Business Administration that is used to identify the startup of new firms and track their performance over time. He then provides different snapshots of the process of industries in motion: why new-firm startup activity varies so greatly across industries; what happens to these firms after they enter the market; the extent to which entrepreneurial firms account for an industry's economic activity and why that measure varies across industries; how small firms compensate for size-related disadvantages; and who exits and why.

Audretsch concludes that the structure of industries is characterized by a high degree of fluidity and turbulence, even as the patterns of evolution vary considerably from industry to industry. The dynamic process by which firms and industries evolve over time is shaped by three fundamental factors: technology, scale economies, and demand. Most important, the evidence suggests that it is the differences in the knowledge conditions and technology underlying each specific industry -- key elements in innovation -- that are responsible for the pattern particular to that industry. ... Read more