His great post “To improve the economy, education economistAlex Salter “reviews some of the best books for teaching introductory economics, intermediate microeconomics, and advanced economics.”
I generally agree with his assessment, but disagree a bit on the introductory vs intermediate economics categories.
Introduction to Economics
Although Alex doesn’t mention it, the textbook I often use for introductory economics is Economic thinking By Paul Hayne, Peter Betke, and David Prychytko. I have some criticisms of this book, but they are very few. I have successfully taught this book to US Navy officers in an Executive MBA distance learning course. Of course, I have added some reading material, but Economic thinking It was a key.
Also, you don’t necessarily have to use or specify a newer edition; textbooks change very little from one edition to the next, and they’re not necessarily better. One thing I’ve done with my students is encouraged them to buy a used copy of the edition two editions before their current one. This has saved them a lot of money.
Intermediate Microeconomics
I agree with Alex. Steven Landsberg Price theory and its applications It’s great. As an economist, David Friedman’s Pricing Theory: Intermediate Text I liked it a lot — and the price is certainly a big selling point, considering that David offers it for free online — but as a teacher, I didn’t like it as much as Landsberg’s text.
Here’s why.
When teaching economics, one of the ways you can open students’ eyes is to show them something that is counterintuitive but absolutely makes sense. All good textbooks do this to some extent. In my opinion, David Friedman’s book takes this too far. What struck me and convinced me to use Landsberg’s text instead of Friedman’s is David’s section “Application: House Prices – A Paradox.” He shows that if you buy a house, you will make money either way, whether prices go up or down. Before you check that section of the book, ask yourself if you can understand why.
That one application convinced me that I would have to expend so much power convincing them of that point that I would have less time to spend on other things. Moreover, it is only true in a narrow sense: you buy a house to take advantage of the “housing services.” So, he is implicitly saying that you are taking advantage of all the housing services that a house provides. But what if you buy one house to live in and one house to speculate on? His argument falls apart. So, if you convince students that he is right, you will have convinced them on the narrow point, but you will miss the broader point, which is probably what they think and is correct.
Twenty-five years ago, a student in our program at the Naval Postgraduate School told a colleague this story: As a lieutenant fresh out of the Naval Academy, she invested in homes. After she made enough money on one home, she rented it out and bought another. Eventually, she started buying two homes. Then four. And so she did. By the time she entered our program, her net worth was $6 million. And when home prices rose, she profited handsomely.
With some trepidation, I say that David is wrong. When I first met him at a conference at Columbia University in the fall of 1971, two of his lectures taught me things I had never thought of before. So maybe he can convince me on this point. But I don’t think he will.
