Microeconomics and Behavior [antikvár]

y goal in writing Microeconomics and Behavior was to produce an intellectually challenging textbook that at the same time would be accessible and engaging to students. The more common approach in this market has been to emphasize one of these dimensions or the other. For example, some texts have done well by sacrificing rigor in the name of user-friendliness. But although such books sometimes keep students happy, they often fail to prepare them for upper-division courses in the major. Others texts have succeeded by sacrificing accessibility in the name of rigor, where rigor all too often means little more than mathematical density. These courses overwhelm many undergraduates, and even those few who become adept at solving well-posed mathematical optimization problems are often baffled by questions drawn from everyday contexts. I have always believed that a text could at once be rigorous and user-friendly. And to judge by the breadth of Microeconomics and Behavior's adoption list, many of you apparently agree. I wrote Microeconomics and Behavior in the conviction that the teaching of intuition and the teaching of technical tools are complements, not substitutes. Students who learn oruy technical tools rarely seem to develop any real affection for our discipline; and even more rarely do they acquire that distinctive mindset we call "thinking like an economist." By contrast, students who develop economic intuition are stimulated to think more deeply about the technical tools they learn, and to find more interesting ways to apply them. Most important, they usually end up Hieing economics. Microeconomics and Behavior develops the core analytical tools with patience and attention to detail. At the same time, it embeds these tools in a uniquely diverse collection of examples and applications to illuminate the power and versatility of the economic way of thirvking. ECONOMIC NATURALISM In more than 30 years of teaching, I have found no more effective device for developing intuition than to train students to become "Economic Naturalists." Studying biology enables people to observe and marvel at many details of life that would otherwise have escaped notice. In much the same way, studying microeconomics can enable students to see the mundane details of ordinary existence in a sharp new light. Throughout the text, I try to develop intuition by means of examples and applications drawn from everyday experience. Microeconomics and Behavior teaches students to see each feature of the manmade landscape as the reflection of an imphcit or explicit cost-benefit calculation. To illustrate, an economic naturahst is someone who wonders why the business manager of the economics department was delighted when I began putting the lecture notes for my course on the university's intranet server, whereas the very same move made the associate dean in the management school (where I also teach) upset. About a week into the term, I got an urgent letter from this dean telling me that henceforth I should instruct the copy center to make hardcopies of my lecture notes for distribution to students free of charge. No similar instruction came from the business manager of the economics department. When