The author of this economics textbook seems to really get it. In the final chapter of the book, David Freeman, professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, explains that his book is meant to teach students economics rather than teach them about economics. I think that is one of the biggest flaws with most textbooks, they teach you about a subject but fail to teach you how to actually use the material or do much more than answer Jeopardy® questions.
Freeman has approached teaching economics differently from most traditional textbooks. He laments that students often memorize somewhat random facts to pass a final and often don’t remember what they have “learned” once they end the course. Freeman believes instead of students memorizing answers that could be easily looked up, students should learn ways of thinking. In this case, “the economic way of thinking” is what Freeman hopes students will learn from his textbook.
The first edition of this text was published in 1986; a second edition was released in 1990. The online text includes chapters from the second edition along with two chapters that only appeared in the first.
Table of Contents for Price Theory: An Intermediate Text online Textbook
- ECONOMICS FOR PLEASURE AND PROFIT
- What is Economics?
- How Economists Think.
- PRICE=VALUE=COST: COMPETITIVE EQUILIBRIUM IN A SIMPLE ECONOMY
- The Consumer: Choice and Indifference Curves
- The Consumer: Marginal Value, Marginal Utility, and Consumer Surplus
- Production
- Simple Trade
- Markets&endash;Putting it All Together
- The Big Picture
- Halftime
- COMPLICATIONS, OR ONWARD TO REALITY
- The Firm
- Small-Numbers Problems: Monopoly and All That
- Hard Problems: Game Theory, Strategic Behavior, and Oligopoly
- Time…
- …and Chance
- The Distribution of Income and the Factors of Production
- JUDGING OUTCOMES
- Economic Efficiency
- What is Efficient?
- Market Interference
- Market Failures
- APPLICATIONS &endash; CONVENTIONAL AND UN
- The Political Marketplace
- The Economics of Law and Law Breaking
- The Economics of Love and Marriage
- WHY YOU SHOULD BUY THIS BOOK
- Final Words
- Additional Chapters from the First Edition not included in the Second
- The Economics of Heating
- Inflation and Unemployment
View this Free Online Material at the source:
Price Theory: An Intermediate Text
