The New World Of Economics [antikvár]

Preface Economics traditionally has been defined by both its method and its subject matter. That is to say, there are economic methods—models and statistical tests based on a set of assumptions about the way people interact. In addition, there is an area of human life, which is hard to describe in a brief phrase but is known to all economists, in which these methods are applied. We believe that the methods have a much wider scope than previously has been thought. Like the first three editions, this fourth edition attempts to introduce the student to the new work that has been done in applying economic methods to problems outside the traditional subject matter of economic study. This new field of research is, we think, more exciting, more interesting, and even more relevant than the more traditional applications to traditional economic problems. Economics has developed over two centuries. During this 200 years, almost all of the places where a simple line of reasoning can be applied to an important and interesting problem have been explored. The remaining areas for economic research are, in general, those where the reasoning is difficult and the amount of progress made in each investigation is comparatively small. The result has been that more and more complex and sophisticated methods have been applied to smaller and smaller problems. This book attempts to break out of the narrow confines of economic subject matter as traditionally defined and to seek out new and refreshing problems that can be dealt with in a simpler way. In this edition, we have added a chapter on the new, emerging field of sociobio-logy (which, as it so happens, has as much or more to do with economics as it does with either sociology or biology—see Chapter 12). We have also added several chapters on current public-policy issues like taxes (Chapter 23), supply-side economics (Chapter 14), and rent seeking (Chapter 15). Past users of the book will recognize that Vll