Macroeconomics

This book is very useful. It is a definite help to graduate students trying to understand macroeconomics. It would probably not help undergraduates.

The challenge of explaining the major schools of thought, and explaining their strengths and weaknesses is a major one. The authors also go over some non-orthodox schools such as Post Keynesian and Austrian. However, some of the diagrams are poorly explained and the writing is a bit incomprehensible in a few chapters. Also, the book does not go over growth theory, which is probably a major part of any graduate macro class. On the whole though, it is one of the best macro books available.

The central purpose of this book is to make sense of the fierce issues and debates concerning modern macroeconomics.

The authors suggest that the text be used alongside a basic macroeconomics textbook or as a main text in itself.

It is an excellent introduction to what is recognised as a controversial area of economics. The analogy of climbing a mountain and not being able to see the landscape is a very pertinent one.

There may be disagreements about the content of this book. Indeed it is easy to adopt a position about exclusions but this is a side issue. The format of an historical perspective in the development of ideas coupled with a consideration of the major positions within the debate works well.

It is clear from reading the text that the authors are very familiar with the subject matter and that each has contributed to the individual chapters on the specialist areas in a way which carries along the general reader.

Two particular things stand out for me in this text. The first is the section within the first chapter devoted to methodological issues and the associated section on rhetoric in economics. This is a key to a comprehensive understanding of the nature of the debate and the competing schools of thought involved.

The other standout aspect of this book is the interviews with various protaganists of the differing schools. Some pretty big names here including that of Nobel Prize Winner, James Tobin who only died last week. And what interviews. Not for these authors the standard sort of awe-struck beholden interviews but foccussed on the central points of the debate, exploratory questions which give real insight into the people and the issues involved. An excellent approach and one which has proved to be very successfully applied.

The final chapter, Conclusions and Reflections provides an outstanding summation and is followed by a comprehensive bibliography.

This book manages to convey in written form the full extent and depth of the macroeconomic debate such that it is intelligible to the educated reader without resorting to more mathematics than are absolutely needed and for that the authors are to be applauded.

In summing up this is a very valuable text which will be an asset to every macroeconomics course reading list.

Snowdon et.al. present a thorough and concise summary of the competing schools of macroeconomic thought and the major scholarly contributions by their proponents. The book is organized in such a manner that one can follow the major ideas and models within the different schools as they emerged, and then follow how these ideas came to be critiqued by a proponent of a competing school. Snowdon et.al do this all by using intuitive interpretations of the literature and without the complex mathematical formulas or empirical test data. Very readable by intermediate standards with excellent information for understanding macro thought.

This is one of 2 books I kept from my four years in college. It is also the book that helped me choose Economics as one of my minors. It's that good.

Gottheil's models (actually, he really only uses one model--a fishery) are almost absurdly easy to follow. Along the way he takes concepts a student would find new and difficult, and makes them into concepts a student can follow, and in my case, enjoy. I whole heartedly reccomend this title.

I have now had two course in economics - Principles of Micro. and Macro., both classes required the use of the priciples books by Fred Gottheil. My professor was a student of Mr. Gottheil and described his classes as clarifying. She said that he made economics easy to understand. This book by Gottheil, as his class, is also easy to comprehend. The topics are confusing to a newcomer of economics but the style and clarification used makes the principles quite simple.

You're absolutely correct!! I was a student of Prof. Gottheil the first year he released this book. The teachings of the book make Micro-Economics both easy to understand and enjoyable. I've recommended this book to both undergrads and MBA students alike, and have not received a single complaints (but have received much praise).

"Consumerism has become the practical ideology of capitalism" is a statement made in the book. This is what Bocock is trying to explore and doing this he reveals the shift from modern to post-modern and how individuals now create their social identity through consumption patterns and not like it used to be through work roles. A mind opening book with loads of interesting reading if you are intrested in consumptions role in society.

The book has a link about the consumption and the behavier, the culture

Its an well-put together of what you really need to know of MacroEcon. and and helps really clarify if Econ. is not a dismal after all?

This book is a "must" for every economics student. It simply helps understand the big macroeconomic iceberg. It includes the labour market macroeconomic part, and some basics macroeconomics. Excellent writers, especially Mr Solow. I would strongly recommend this book.

Shaviro has written an excellent and informative book about a (seemingly) important issue. The book nicely summarizes much of economic literature in non-technical terms. I would highly recommend this book to anyone (including non-specialist economists who want a quick introduction to this area).

My one complaint is that the book -- as is clear from the introduction -- is very U.S. centric and has only a few references to other countries. For example, the discussion of why shifting powers to the states might limit the size of government (since they can not print money and therefore can not run persistent deficits and can only tax so much before taxpayers move to escape high taxes) seems to go against the experience of some other federal countries (e.g., Brazil) where the states seem willing to be quite profligate (perhaps relying on federal bailouts).

According to the author, "over the past twenty-five years, the deficit debate among economists has grown increasingly discordant, reflecting the issue's increasing prominence, the growing size of reported deficits, and the collapse of 1960s Keynesianism."

Daniel Shaviro is professor of law at New York University and a former legislation attorney with the Joint Committee on Taxation of the United States Congress. There are few lawyers who write like economists (or better) and Shaviro's mastery of the development of economic thought is both judicious and impressive.

Nevertheless, if we can judge the state of economic arguments by papers presented at the annual convention of economists, there would seem to be a reduction in papers even dealing with the the Federal budget deficit. At the end of 1997, most policy-makers are celebrating the virtual elimination of the deficit, and the question becomes one of whose taxes should be cut? In this respect, Shaviro's rather conservative position seems to be one of accepting $200 billion deficits for some time.

In my view, a great deal of the skeptical view of economists with regard to the Federal deficit has been the result of the heroic writings of the Classical Keynesian, Robert Eisner, former President of the American Economic Association, reinforced by the last writings of Nobel Prize winner William Vickrey.

Shaviro treats Eisner's writings with critical respect and even admits a certain renaissance in Keynesian thinking as a result of the prediction failures of the monetarists, including the rational expectations and real business cycle extensions of neo-classical thinking.

This reviewer was pleased to see a younger political economist take the views of Abba Lerner seriously, particularly his pathbreaking article on "functional financs." Shaviro maintains that "Lerner was perhaps the leading early post-World Waw II Keynesian economist in the United States, not a marginal figure or a crank." If true, how does one explain the endless peregrinations of Professor Lerner searching for tenure?

One little-recognized contribution of Lerner was his recognition of what he called "supply-side inflation" in the seventies, something also understood by the British Keynesian, Sir Roy Harrod, and the Canadian economist John Hotson, who labeled the Harrod insight as the "Harrod dichotomy." Milton Friedman's reassuring claim that "we are all Keynesians now" permitted the eclipse of the Lernerians in theoretical discussions and the continuation of the dogmatic monetarist belief that inflation is always a question of too much money in the system.

More importantly, it resulted in the popularity of Paul Volker's "licking of inflation" with a little-noticed jump of real interest rates in the early eighties and the continued fawning approval of his successor, Alan Greespan, despite the fact that Greenspan has given up the use of monetary aggregates to determine his monetary policy decisions.

Shaviro seems overly impressed with an "independent" Fed conducting monetary policy (except for Burns in 1972), and it is very difficult for this reviewer to go along with Shaviro's conclusion that "deliberate management of the business cycle should generally be left to the Federal Reserve, acting through monetary policy."

The persistent fears of the Fed concerning demand-pull inflation in the long run have produced passive or cyclical deficits and eventually deflation. It is no accident that the postwar record deficits have all been passive and achieved by Republican Administrations beginning with Eisenhower and ending with Bush.

I found that the book was really interesting to my studies as an "economist". In fact, it is a precise description of the effects of history and politics in economics. With regards to the use a student may give to the book, I found really good the examples given by the author. In addition, the excercises proposed with their solutions are really helpful when it's time to study !

At first it seemed like another textbook on economic growth with the good old end-of-chapter questions. After a closer look I realized this is a really sophisticated piece of economic literature. I believe the main difference from other books in the field lies in the blend of rigorous mathematical analysis and necessary - but always forgotten - historical perspective. A must read!

Yavlinsky warns the reader at the outset of this approach to the Russian transition that the methodology of Incentives and Institutions is more theoretical (mathematical) than his previous works on the Russian transition like 500 Days (1992). The problem in Russia hinges on prohibitive distancing of "owner" (state) control from the management in the Soviet system discussed in Part One, and the conflict of interest of insider control since privatization discussed in Part Two. Part one proposes that: 1) Hierarchical property rights are incompatible with democracy, and 2) Hierarchical property rights and innovations under an "isolated dictator" is incompatible with market allocation of capital. The second requires dictatorial isolation ex ante and ex post in that he never observes the "price." This seems a rather naïve and strict assumption. Part two discusses the path dependence of current insider ownership and its consequences. In both cases the problem is one of incentive compatibility for managers faced with opportunities in the official and unofficial sectors.

Part Three takes these intuitions and presents ideas and proposals for improving the situation. This section focuses on social contract, democratic efficacy, institutional development, and federal decentralization. First they claim "the collapse of communism, caused as it was by the path-dependent spontaneous process, has resulted in the entrenchment of a socioeconomic paradigm that effectively blocks further movement in the direction of a conventional market economy." The social contract of the old system is the paternalism of serfdom followed by communism's "de facto serfdom." The new contract is corporatism at the top, and Hobbesian jungle at the bottom. Political democracy, foreign investment, and market economy are Braguinsky and Yavlinsky's solutions. The failure of this is that, while they get to some of the core of the problem, the "solutions" are self-evident and address "What is to be done?" when the real question is "How to do it?"

Secondly, the authors claim that democracy is not only compatible with reform, but necessary in Russia because of Communism's involvement in economics and politics. The tilt in that balance of power burned both bridges. Why is this not the case in China? They claim that liberalization was not a calculated process as in China (or during NEP in Russia). Another claim is that models of government failure require irrational voters, lack of competition or prohibitive transaction costs. However failed reform is analytically compatible with excessive competition, particularly if it is among reform groups.

Third, they emphasize the role of institutions in competition and eventual growth. They suggest that a "Federal Property Protection Service" form to enforce private property rights directly with firms rather than intermediating government, bureaucracy and industry. This service interacts with firms and is (loosely) accountable to the government. The suggestion is that for a flat fee this FPPS will provide property protection to those who pay. But this sits on a razor's edge. On the one side, the question is of what happens to those who cannot pay the flat fee, and on the other, if it is affordable to everyone, how the service will cover its expenses.

Fourth, they discuss proposals for the decentralization and governmental integrity. As much as the authors beg not to compare Russia to China, their proposals for decentralization and parallel what is done in China with TVEs. Decentralization would be compatible with the FPPS only if special interests in that area do not represent "too large" a share of the total area income. Coalitions of regional enforcement services would form to avoid size bias and allow local FPPS to self-insure against idiosyncratic differences costs and revenues. This scheme relies on the practicality of the FPPS.

While this book ventures to areas that are only beginning to be economically analyzed, it focuses on what is wrong, and what is to be done, not really providing practical, realistic solutions for how to accomplish the goals of transition. The answer lies not in theory, but in the real cultural, social, and economic realities of Russia today and how specific organizations can arise from the norms that are accepted and practiced in Russia.

I had the extreme pleasure to read this presentation on the overall situation,insight,and ways to solve the questions surrounding the ever-so inpertainant russian economy
I also will tell you that anyone who wants to have an understandig of what is in the mind-set of russian economists and reformists,then please,take the time to invest in this fine
literary work.
grigory a yavlinsky has accomplished yet another difficult task-
and he is,I think(by the reading material that I have read)will be and should be the answer to rebuilding the vast post-soviet economy's sectors,inside and out,this,among other things, is the true way to russian financial security,and this book is definitly the "bible" of works surrounding the russian economy.

This book offers a new path to introduce us in macroeconomic studies, quite innovative if we compare to its congenerous, however very focused on rational expectations contribuitions. The authors suggests we must priorize our comprehension about the long term economic flutuactons, in opposite of the traditional ones, which dedicate the last pages to develop these subjects; in Hall & Talylor's book, the reader is introduced to the basics frameworks and modern theories soon in the firsts chapters. So, the natural consequence of their proposal is the loss of the primacy of Hicks's IS-LM model - as a basic framework tradionaly adopted as necessary to understanding the macroeconomics fundamentals - to the contemporaries economics growth theories, enriching it with many "real world" examples about its approaches. The only restriction I do is the negligence, or a little more emphasis, on other kind of approaches in macroeconomic thought (the post-keynesians contribuitions, for example), causing us the sensation that the macroeconomics reality is restricted to rational expectations workings. For an approach which priorize the evolution of the schools of macroeconomics thought, I recomend the Froyen's book. In spite of that, is an excellent introduction to macroeconomic theory.

This book is well organized to help student learn macroeconomics. It has the best utilization of pedagogical features (not just graphs, captions and colors) I've ever seen. I found key term call-outs, section reviews, and keypoint outlines to be the most helpful. I appreciate the efforts of reducing the amount of reading necessary to understand the concepts.
If you are not a lazy student, you will have lots of case studies, news analysis, econ puzzles, and biographies to broaden your breath. All these features are well organized so that you can read efficiently, thanks to the ingenious layouts.
I am actually here to look for other books by Mr. Taylor to support my current textbooks.

My major is in international business and this was my second course in macro. I found this to be a solid book in explaning the concepts.
My favourite part of the book was where they develop a model of the macro economy of a country - and explanin how the monetary and fiscal policy can alter how the economy moves. In light of the recent dip in the economy this was very useful in understanding why the Fed behaves the way it does.
Highly recommended for macro economics!

If the 8th edition is anywhere near as clear and accessible as the 2nd, then this is THE book to learn macro from. Dornbusch et. al. have done a masterful job of laying out intermediate macro theory in clear and concise prose. It's the kind of book that makes you want to know more.

Keep it. You'll refer to it every once in while. I still do after 20 years. Lots of good econ guys at MIT (big surprise there, right?).

Check out Paul Krugman's popular work too, particularly the highly readable "The Return of Depression Economics," his analysis of the 1997 Asian Flu that started in Thailand. Good background for Act II of Monetary Crises and Emerging Markets starring Treasury Secretary O'Neill and George Bush, now playing in Argentina, Turkey, SE Asia, and geopolitical spheres of influence worldwide.

this is the best textbook available--its easy to understand, lively and well written

This is a good book at an intermediate level. It attempts to discuss the main macroeconomic issues, with an emphasis on the analysis underlying the policies. The book is written with clarity and is user-friendly.

The balance of the analysis appears to be tilted towards the monetarist school, especially in the discussion of inflation and the "natural" rate of unemployment. McElroy regards this as the mainstream view, and underemphasizes opposing approaches, especially the Keynesian. In doing this, he disregards some crucial questions, such as how would we know we were at the "natural" rate, and also the empirical fact that estimates of the natural rate have differed so much as to be professionally embarrassing.

This is, nevertheless, a book that is well worth reading. I hope that subsequent editions will rectify the balance of the policy discussions. The book would also gain by an enlarged examination of empirical studies of the concepts discussed.

McElroy presents great examples and real world ideas to the subject. Using technical analysis as well as the topics that are interesting to us all, he makes the subject very well rounded.

Although this book is an intermediate textbook for macroeconomics, it is more integrated and analytical than other similar textbooks. The book seems a little harder to read than some books, but it can provide you a more solid background and a better understanding for macroeconomics. It has very clear theme underlying the book: first lets you know the models and then tells you how to use the models to analyze the macroeconomic problems. keynesian theory is the focus of the book. Finallly, if the book can include more case study, it would be better.