Microeconomics for Public Managers presents a rigorous non-mathematical introduction to the study of microeconomics geared towards managers of nonprofit institutions. Provides an introduction to the economist’s toolkit for students destined for not-for-profit enterprises and public institutions Topics are selected for their relevance to the non-profit sector, enabling key issues to be covered in greater depth than standard microeconomic textbooks Pertinent case studies and cost-benefit analysis are utilized throughout Features end-of chapter problem sets and study questions Describes economic decision-making applicable to non-profit managers Accompanying website with instructor materials is available at www.blackwellpublishing.com/keating
Microeconomics for Public Managers presents a rigorous non-mathematical introduction to the study of microeconomics geared towards managers of nonprofit institutions. Provides an introduction to the economist’s toolkit for students destined for not-for-profit enterprises and public institutions Topics are selected for their relevance to the non-profit sector, enabling key issues to be covered in greater depth than standard microeconomic textbooks Pertinent case studies and cost-benefit analysis are utilized throughout Features end-of chapter problem sets and study questions Describes economic decision-making applicable to non-profit managers Accompanying website with instructor materials is available at www.blackwellpublishing.com/keating
This book shows, from start to finish, how microeconomics can and should be used in the analysis of public policy problems. It is an exciting new way to learn microeconomics, motivated by its application to important, real-world issues. Lee Friedman's modern replacement for his influential 1984 work not only brings the issues addressed into the present but develops all intermediate microeconomic theory to make this book accessible to a much wider audience. Friedman offers the microeconomic tools necessary to understand policy analysis of a wide range of matters of public concern--including the recent California electricity crisis, welfare reform, public school finance, global warming, health insurance, day care, tax policies, college loans, and mass transit pricing. These issues are scrutinized through microeconomic models that identify policy strengths, weaknesses, and ideas for improvements. Each chapter begins with explanations of several fundamental microeconomic principles and then develops models that use and probe them in analyzing specific public policies. The book has two primary and complementary goals. One is to develop skills of economic policy analysis: to design, predict the effects of, and evaluate public policies. The other is to develop a deep understanding of microeconomics as an analytic tool for application--its strengths and extensions into such advanced techniques as general equilibrium models and pricing methods for natural monopolies and its weaknesses, such as behavioral inconsistencies with utility-maximization models and its limits in comparing institutional alternatives. The result is an invaluable professional and academic reference, one whose clear explanation of principles and analytic techniques, and wealth of constructive applications, will ensure it a prominent place not only on the bookshelves but also on the desks of students and professionals alike.
Developed over a ten year period at the Stanford Business School, this textbook underscores the connections between microeconomics and business. Its full-length, integrated case studies reveal how economic models can yield answers to practical problems.
A graduate textbook on microeconomics, covering decision theory, game theory, and the foundations of contract theory, with a unique focus on the empirical. This graduate-level text on microeconomics, covering such topics as decision theory, game theory, bargaining theory, contract theory, trade under asymmetric information, and relational contract theory, is unique in its emphasis on the interplay between theory and evidence. It reviews the microeconomic theory of exchange “from the ground up,” aiming to produce a set of models and hypotheses amenable to empirical exploration, with particular focus on models that are useful for the study of contracts, institutions, and organizations. It explores research that extends price theory to the exchange of commodities when markets are incomplete, discussing recent developments in the field. Topics covered include the relationship between theory and evidence; decision theory as it is used in contract theory and institutional design; game theory; axiomatic and strategic bargaining theory; agency theory and the class of models that are considered to constitute contract theory, with discussions of moral hazard and trade with asymmetric information; and the theory of relational contracts. The final chapter offers a nontechnical review that provides a guide to which model is the most appropriate for a particular application. End-of-chapter exercises help students expand their understanding of the material, and an appendix provides brief introduction to optimization theory and the welfare theorem of general equilibrium theory. Students are assumed to be familiar with general equilibrium theory and basic constrained optimization theory.
A seminal figure in the field of public management, Mark H. Moore presents his summation of fifteen years of research, observation, and teaching about what public sector executives should do to improve the performance of public enterprises. Useful for both practicing public executives and those who teach them, this book explicates some of the richest of several hundred cases used at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and illuminates their broader lessons for government managers. Moore addresses four questions that have long bedeviled public administration: What should citizens and their representatives expect and demand from public executives? What sources can public managers consult to learn what is valuable for them to produce? How should public managers cope with inconsistent and fickle political mandates? How can public managers find room to innovate? Moore’s answers respond to the well-understood difficulties of managing public enterprises in modern society by recommending specific, concrete changes in the practices of individual public managers: how they envision what is valuable to produce, how they engage their political overseers, and how they deliver services and fulfill obligations to clients. Following Moore’s cases, we witness dilemmas faced by a cross-section of public managers: William Ruckelshaus and the Environmental Protection Agency; Jerome Miller and the Department of Youth Services; Miles Mahoney and the Park Plaza Redevelopment Project; David Sencer and the swine flu scare; Lee Brown and the Houston Police Department; Harry Spence and the Boston Housing Authority. Their work, together with Moore’s analysis, reveals how public managers can achieve their true goal of producing public value.
The first textbook to present a comprehensive and detailed economic analysis of electricity markets, analyzing the tensions between microeconomics and political economy. The power industry is essential in our fight against climate change. This book is the first to examine in detail the microeconomics underlying power markets, stemming from peak-load pricing, by which prices are low when the installed generation capacity exceeds demand but can rise a hundred times higher when demand is equal to installed capacity. The outcome of peak-load pricing is often difficult to accept politically, and the book explores the tensions between microeconomics and political economy. Understanding peak-load pricing and its implications is essential for designing robust policies and making sound investment decisions. Thomas-Olivier Léautier presents the model in its simplest form, and introduces additional features as different issues are presented. The book covers all segments of electricity markets: electricity generation, under perfect and imperfect competition; retail competition and demand response; transmission pricing, transmission congestion management, and transmission constraints; and the current policy issues arising from the entry of renewables into the market and capacity mechanisms. Combining anecdotes and analysis of real situations with rigorous analytical modeling, each chapter analyzes one specific issue, first presenting findings in nontechnical terms accessible to policy practitioners and graduate students in management or public policy and then presenting a more mathematical analytical exposition for students and researchers specializing in the economics of electricity markets and for those who want to understand and apply the underlying models.
