The generalization of microeconomics enables model descriptions of economic rationality, even in fields that standard microeconomics more or less avoids, like nonprofit sectors of market economies, altruism, or externalities. Here, the authors broaden the scope of microeconomics while treating standard profit maximization as a special case. They argue, ultimately, that the generalizing criterion is a Darwinian maximization of the probability of survival.
In this novel introduction to modern microeconomic theory, Samuel Bowles returns to the classical economists' interest in the wealth and poverty of nations and people, the workings of the institutions of capitalist economies, and the coevolution of individual preferences and the structures of markets, firms, and other institutions. Using recent advances in evolutionary game theory, contract theory, behavioral experiments, and the modeling of dynamic processes, he develops a theory of how economic institutions shape individual behavior, and how institutions evolve due to individual actions, technological change, and chance events. Topics addressed include institutional innovation, social preferences, nonmarket social interactions, social capital, equilibrium unemployment, credit constraints, economic power, generalized increasing returns, disequilibrium outcomes, and path dependency. Each chapter is introduced by empirical puzzles or historical episodes illuminated by the modeling that follows, and the book closes with sets of problems to be solved by readers seeking to improve their mathematical modeling skills. Complementing standard mathematical analysis are agent-based computer simulations of complex evolving systems that are available online so that readers can experiment with the models. Bowles concludes with the time-honored challenge of "getting the rules right," providing an evaluation of markets, states, and communities as contrasting and yet sometimes synergistic structures of governance. Must reading for students and scholars not only in economics but across the behavioral sciences, this engagingly written and compelling exposition of the new microeconomics moves the field beyond the conventional models of prices and markets toward a more accurate and policy-relevant portrayal of human social behavior.
The second edition of a comprehensive state-of-the-art graduate level text on microeconometric methods, substantially revised and updated. The second edition of this acclaimed graduate text provides a unified treatment of two methods used in contemporary econometric research, cross section and data panel methods. By focusing on assumptions that can be given behavioral content, the book maintains an appropriate level of rigor while emphasizing intuitive thinking. The analysis covers both linear and nonlinear models, including models with dynamics and/or individual heterogeneity. In addition to general estimation frameworks (particular methods of moments and maximum likelihood), specific linear and nonlinear methods are covered in detail, including probit and logit models and their multivariate, Tobit models, models for count data, censored and missing data schemes, causal (or treatment) effects, and duration analysis. Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data was the first graduate econometrics text to focus on microeconomic data structures, allowing assumptions to be separated into population and sampling assumptions. This second edition has been substantially updated and revised. Improvements include a broader class of models for missing data problems; more detailed treatment of cluster problems, an important topic for empirical researchers; expanded discussion of "generalized instrumental variables" (GIV) estimation; new coverage (based on the author's own recent research) of inverse probability weighting; a more complete framework for estimating treatment effects with panel data, and a firmly established link between econometric approaches to nonlinear panel data and the "generalized estimating equation" literature popular in statistics and other fields. New attention is given to explaining when particular econometric methods can be applied; the goal is not only to tell readers what does work, but why certain "obvious" procedures do not. The numerous included exercises, both theoretical and computer-based, allow the reader to extend methods covered in the text and discover new insights.
Producers, Consumers, and Partial Equilibrium provides a systematic and accessible presentation of the full formal details in the core theories of producer and consumer choice under conditions of price taking; and covers the standard theories of competitive, monopoly, and oligopoly partial equilibrium among these economic actors. The book pulls together foundational content from many classic sources and organizes it in a self-contained format that rigidly adheres to optimization as the central behavioral postulate and analytical tool for economic theory. The book maintains a sharp focus on the properties of outcomes from optimizing behavior in varying environments. These properties are the refutable hypotheses from each optimization behavioral postulate, and they form the core content of this positive economic theory. In so doing, the book presents and documents the underlying formal structure of the theory with a higher degree of integration and completeness than is typical of Ph.D. textbooks in microeconomics. - Includes comprehensive, focused and unified coverage of the mathematics required for the core theories of producer and consumer choice, and partial equilibrium - Presents a generalized envelope theorem as a key source of refutable hypotheses - Delineates the role of active versus inactive constraints in generating refutable hypotheses - Discusses convex functions in economic optimization environments - Presents the full formal details of core producer and consumer and producer theory in a unified and systematic manner - Emphasizes the refutable hypotheses resulting from behavioral postulates and the completeness (duality) of those hypotheses for the postulated behavior within microeconomics - Includes end-of-chapter exercises, full index, and an instructor's solutions manual - Includes a concordance that matches its chapters with those of major textbooks
This textbook explains comprehensively and in rigorous detail not only mainstream microeconomics, but also why many economists are dissatisfied with major aspects of it, and the alternative that they are exploring in response: the Classical-Keynesian-Kaleckian approach. This advanced yet user-friendly book allows readers to grasp the standard theory of consumers, firms, imperfect competition, general equilibrium, uncertainty, games and asymmetric information. Furthermore, it examines the classical approaches to value and income distribution advocated by Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx, as well as Post-Keynesian pricing theory, and the microeconomics of variable capacity utilization. Using simple models, it highlights the analytical roots of the important differences between the marginal/neoclassical approach and the classical-Keynesian, critically examining the plausibility and reciprocal consistency of their assumptions. The book also addresses various microeconomic issues not generally included in advanced microeconomics textbooks, including differential land rent, joint-production long-period pricing, capital theory from Walras to the Cambridge debates, the foundations of aggregate production functions, the microeconomics of labor markets, and the long-period theory of wages. Lastly, it presents a unique re-evaluation of welfare economics. Intended for advanced undergraduate and graduate microeconomics courses, this textbook offers a comprehensive introduction to the various approaches and different schools of thought currently competing in the context of economic theory. It can also be used in courses on value and distribution, heterodox economics, and the history of economic analysis. In the present situation, characterized by scientific uncertainty and the co-existence of competing approaches, it will stimulate students to form their own opinion as to which approach appears more promising from a scientific standpoint.
Essential Microeconomics is designed to help students deepen their understanding of the core theory of microeconomics. Unlike other texts, this book focuses on the most important ideas and does not attempt to be encyclopedic. Two-thirds of the textbook focuses on price theory. As well as taking a new look at standard equilibrium theory, there is extensive examination of equilibrium under uncertainty, the capital asset pricing model, and arbitrage pricing theory. Choice over time is given extensive coverage and includes a basic introduction to control theory. The final third of the book, on game theory, provides a comprehensive introduction to models with asymmetric information. Topics such as auctions, signaling, and mechanism design are made accessible to students who have a basic rather than a deep understanding of mathematics. There is ample use of examples and diagrams to illustrate issues as well as formal derivations. Essential Microeconomics is designed to help students deepen their understanding of the core theory of microeconomics.
This student-friendly text clearly integrates microeconomic theory with calculus and graphics; its approach centers on constructing and analyzing fundamental models. By integrating basic tools of calculus, the text encourages students to solve problems by generating actual numerical solutions. The manner in which calculus reinforces the graphical analysis is clearly demonstrated in a step-by-step fashion; students will understand what the graphical solutions actually represent. Numerous real world applications of the theory are highlighted throughout the text.
The authors have written a rigorous yet elementary and self-contained book to present, in a unified framework, generalized convex functions. The book also includes numerous exercises and two appendices which list the findings consulted.
