The economics anti-textbook: a critical thinker's guide to microeconomics

Description

Introduction -- Our Goals, Audience, and Principal Themes 1. What is economics? Where you start influences where you go 2. Introducing economic models 3. How markets work (in an imaginary world) 4. People as consumers 5. The firm 6. Market Structure and Efficiency -- or why perfect competition isn't so perfect after all. Addendum -- What about the efficiency of asset markets? 7. Externalities and the ubiquity of market failure 8. The marginal productivity theory of income distribution -- or you're worth what you can get 9. Government, taxation, and the (re)distribution of income: is a just society just too expensive? 10. Trade and globalization without the rose-tinted glasses Conclusion Postscript -- A Case Study on the Global Financial Meltdown;Drawing on the work of leading economists, this title lays bare the blind spots in the texts and their sins of omission and commission. It shows where hidden value judgements are made and when contrary evidence is ignored. It also shows the claims made without any evidence and the alternative theories that aren't mentioned.