Reviews (13)

Disappointment
Sharing the sentiments of the two previous posters, I think this book is a disappointment.For example, the second macro model presented by Romer -- the Ramsey-Cass-Koopman model -- is absent of optimal control theory.Setting up the Hamiltonian and showing how to dervive the Euler's equation of the optimal consumption path of the representative consumer would be a better treatment of the topics.This book, I think, lacks basic techincal tools essential for econ Ph.D. students.I am a microeconomist-wanna-be, this book makes me wonder what on earth is macroeconomics -- something very mysterious to me.Who are going to write a better text for graduate-level macro for non-macroeconomists???

disappointment
I regret to say that this is not a good accompaniment for my graduate macroeconomics class.I thought I could somehow get some mileage out of this book, but as I read it I found out that its lack of technical details and rigor make my lecture notes look superior. I was misled to think that this is a great textbook through the early positive reviews below, that's why I bought it.Nevertheless, the empirical content is more than enough to satisfy one's curiosity, but I think it is not worthwhile to study advanced macroeconomics without learning fully the necessary theories and the accompanying mathematical techniques.This textbook must not be the choice for a core graduate level macroeconomics class; it's wordiness is comparable to the undergraduate textbook "Intermediate Microeconomics" text by Varian.It is readable of course, when you want to pass the time, but it won't do for a graduate level text.I'm disappointed because this is the second edition already but still the author stuck to the same way of presentation.Perhaps the only differences between the first and the second edition are the empirical data sets and a new chapter and nothing else.The first three chapters and chapter 7 of Obstfeld and Rogoff's treatise, "Foundations of International Macroeconomics," Barro and Sala-i-Martin's, "Economic Growth," and the chapters 2,3 and 4 of Blanchard and Fischer's, "Lectures in Macroeconomics," provide a more comprehensive view of modern acroeconomics.

Reviews (62)

Justly used everywhere
This textbook is justly being adopted by almost all gruaduate programs in economics. It contains a very modern and quite exhaustive treatment of modern microeconomic theory, including of course demand and production, game theory, general equilibrium theory, contract theory. It also have an excellent mathematical appendix. It's a tought book to study, very advanced, but while in graduate school I found it well written, and very useful. And, believe me, I am not a fan of micro theory! Overall, the only problem I have with this book is... not really the book, but rather the fact that nowadays most graduate programs ONLY deal with the theory contained in this book, disregarding instead the many many usuful results and insights that you can find, say, in another masterful classic, Deaton and Muellbauer's "Economics and consumer behavior", which unlikely Mas-Colell et al. has a stong emphasis on tools that researchers working in applied labor/public/development economics will find invaluable. Indeed, I am waiting for someone to write a more updated and modern version of a book like Deaton & Muellbauer, but apparently it has not appeared yet. Anyway, Mas-Colell is an amazingly good textbook for micro theory, and it has justly become a classic.

Better than Varian
Even though this is a very large text, it's written in an easily comprehended manner.I find that reading it once is usually sufficient whereas Varian is so terse that I have to read it five times before understanding it.

Reviews (6)

The best UNDERGRADUATE textbook on Development Economics
This is what I had to wait a long time for back in my days as an academic -- an UNDERGRADUATE textbook on Development Economics that is aimed squarely at economists. Most other textbooks on the subject are aimed at students with a general interest in development. While this makes them more accessible, they suffer from not seeing how useful a tool mainstream economic theory is when it comes to examining development issues. Importantly, Ray uses the analytical tools of economics without being too mathematical. This is the textbook I had my undergraduate students buy.

For graduate students it's an excellent 'background' text, but not sufficiently advanced enough to serve as a core text to supplement journal articles.

solid textbook in scientific mode
This textbook was written for senior undergraduates or master's students with a minimum introduction to economics, which assumes that the student has assimilated the general features of the approach defining economics as a social science.Consequently, any student or reader who is well grounded in the social science paradigm will readily assimilate this excellent introduction to development economics, which is distinguished by the solid, I would even say, jam-packed expertise of Debraj Ray.

The author gives an excellent overview in the four-page preface, where he acknowledges the limitations of his work and prepares the reader well by conveying a transparent framework for absorbing the rather dense exposition that follows.

There is in the second chapter a concise discussion of the meaning of economic development, which defines it as a multifaceted concept for which per capita income is a robust but significantly incomplete operational measure.

Throughout the book, the basic pattern of discussion is consistent.The author discusses theory and data in dynamic--the order of the two is interchangeable--identifying and discriminating what is substantiated, imperfect, or defective in theory, as well as what is informative, unexplained, or wanting in data, and then whenever possible drawing implications or conclusions for economic policy.The ultimate goal of author's analysis is to limn the "structural characteristics" of economic development, building upon the fundamental assumption that the key determinants of economic performance are a cohort of salient variables that affect the efficient functioning of markets.

Some of the variables that are intensively discussed include inequality, poverty, population growth, rural-urban sector interaction, the functioning of land, labor, capital, credit, and insurance markets, and trade policy.Not all factors that affect economic development are adequately quantified, such as social norms or the status quo.Interestingly, the author accounts rather well for the "East Asian miracle" in terms of some of these variables.

The two appendices at the end cover game theory and elementary statistical methods, both essential for the scientific understanding of economic development.

Designed for an introductory course, the textbook is of course weakly regardful of new ideas or studies, so that it will not bring the reader to any eager appreciation of exciting issues in the discipline--or maybe economics inherently IS a dismal science?

From the standpoint of social science, the textbook is surpassingly descriptive and analytical but to only a limited extent prescriptive.I highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to substantively understand economic development in an analytical and scientific mode.

Reviews (9)

One of the best introductory calculus texts ever
If you want to learn calculus from first-rate experts and also first-rate explainers, you will love this text. The authors have gone to great lengths to motivate and elucidate the ideas behind calculus, and they do so in a brilliant and very readable fashion. They take the reader by the hand and explain, step by step, what you need to know. Countless applications from science, engineering, and economics let you get an idea of how calculus is really used out there in the field.

If this book should be your first calculus text, you may consider yourself fortunate because you will not only get an extremely well explained introduction into calculus, but will also be exposed to a wealth of colorful background information. Many math texts go into dry theorem-proof treatments; everything's there, but the subject does not come to life. You will find this book refreshingly different.

One caveat. You need to bear in mind that this book is an introductory text, though a very complete one that tells you about Lagrange multipliers and vector calculus and triple integrals. If, however, you are an accomplished mathematician looking for post-graduate information on integration in topological vector spaces, you need to look elsewhere. But even then you would be likely, in this excellent and exciting book, to stumble upon some interesting information that you may not have known about before.

Not bad, but needs better explanations
This book was good for understanding the basics of all the concepts, but if you wanted to go more in depth, it was not a very good learning resource. The explanations were not very clear and detailed, and there were also not enough examples.Often, I felt that it would have been much more helpful to have detailed explanations of the more difficult problems.

Reviews (15)

Beware of the last chapter
Overall this is a very well written intro to game theory.However I want to raise one point which was never mentioned here.Unfortunately Gobbons' writing style deteriorate as the book progresses, and gets downright careless in the last chapter, which happens to be filled with examples.(there are typos as well, which are not present in other chapters.)I don't know if he was under the pressure to finish the book quickly, but it is clear not much attention was paid to that chapter.The explanations are not clear and confusing (it is a consensus from my classmates.)I'm giving four stars still because I think it is a pretty good introductory text.Just be mindful of that chapter.

Basic, but well written
This book provides a very simple, intuitive introduction to game theory, avoiding technical details. The author's style of writing is extremely clear. However, the book lacks sufficient rigor to make a good "stand-alone" introductory text for a graduate course in game theory. It would work well as a main text for an undergraduate course. Finally, most of the exercises in the book are well chosen and useful, unlike certain other texts on game theory I could mention.