Macroeconomics

I need to do some parameterized expectation work. I read Chapter 7. It is not well-written. The authors first introduce the general framework, and then introduce a series of examples. People would be stuck at the general framework part. They don't know WHY do we do that.

A better way to introduce this method would be to use one or two completely worked out examples, paying particular attention to explain the ideas behind doing what we are doing. This way people will know the ideas behind the method, even though not necessarily the general framework (who need to know the general framework anyway?) Then introduce the general framework, and more examples.

with the reviewer from Chile. This is a very good book covering a fairly wide range of material at a level that is surprisingly accessible. It is well edited, and makes solid use of the internet to provide programs for buyers to download and try for themselves. Highly recommended.

This book has the merit of collecting many major recent contributions from authors that continuosly make serious research in numerical and computational methods of solving the now basic problems we face in macroeconomics principally (but that serves in other areas in economics too), that put them in a simple theoretic and practical way for the economist. It perfectly serves as an introductory book for graduate studies in this area and as an complete reference book for further research.

If you want to learn about finance, go read Cochrane's Asset Pricing. Magill and Quinzii's book starts off from a very broad model, called "General Equilibrium under Incomplete Markets", and by the time that you've understood all the notation, you're basically at the end of their book. Yield curve, Black and Scholes, Continuous time finance, Futures, Corporate Finance... don't think it's in their book. The authors have a perception of financial economics that is ivory tower like, not applicable, and esoteric. But then again, if you want to be theorist, this might be just the right book for you. If you want to be more than an "...", really, go read Cochrane, Hull (on contingent claims), and Merton's Continuous Time Finance (now that's a book (bible) worth spending some time on) and many other high quality textbooks. You will have spent wise money instead of buying an outdated, overrated/pretentious, boring and useless textbook.

The previous review is not only unfair, but also irrelevant. If you do not like the field of GE under incomplete markets, fine. But then you would certainly not be in a position to comment on any book in the field, would you? Moreover, comparing apples and bananas has never been the brightest of ideas: this is not finance, this is GE under incomplete markets.

Magill and Quinzii provides a one-stop shop for masters/PhD level introduction to the theory of incomplete markets. The book covers the main topics in a highly readable manner and with very good examples. It is also the only book in the market that focuses on incomplete markets in such a detailed way. I believe the book belongs in the library of all students of advanced financial economics.

Rather dry. Not very much that you couldn't figure out by yourself; not much original insight. The author uses statistics throughout to the point that it almost becomes meaningless. Anyone with the most limited experience with statistics knows that you can make them say just about anything you want.

What I had hoped for was some insight into why there is so much economic disparity in this country and what we can, or should, do about it. Instead the author gave more of a status quo, "we are here," appoach.

The last chapter was maybe the most insteresting. It focused on the economic changes in the US since WW2. It is anybody's guess what the future will bring, but it seems like it will continue as it is now until there is some big crash or other disaster.

Andrew Hacker's Money is a great look at who has the money in America and how they got it. He talks in great detail about how the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor. I was astounded to read that in 1997 there were 137 individuals who claimed over $1 billion in income. Almost 70,000 tax returns claimed an income of at least $1 million. There are far more rich people out there than I thought and it leads me to believe that if they can do it, so can I.

As a former student of Professor Hacker, I've developed much respect for the man. While that certainly biases my opinion of his books (as I do view him as the God of Political Science), I know that I will always be getting a fresh perspective as I've never known anyone who could "cut the crap" better than Professor Hacker.

One of the most important lessons I learned from him is to always read between the lines; so that we may learn to think beyond the 68% norm. While Dr. Hacker could certainly fill hundreds of more pages with his insightful comments and statistical analyses, he knows that in between the lines, there is a whole other book yet to be created by the reader. I regret not having learned that until after he had already given me my final grade.

First: I haven't read the book so ...Please disregard the 3-star rating as the system requires me to put in the rating before I can submit this....
This sounds like an interesting book for graduate students and professional macroeconomists. But why isn't there at least a Table of Contents for potential buyers to see? It's a pity. I will certainly consider buying this book but need more information.

First, let me praise Favero's effort. He is absolutely right in his approach, i.e, in emphasizing the comparison of the most important "schools" of macroeconometrics. In general, what you have is a textbook about the Cowles Comissionn approach, another about the LSE approach, another about recursive methods and callibration and etc. As many people just read one or two books about macroeconometrics at grad school, it's obvious that very few know about the diversity of techniques available in the field.
Favero, correctly, points out that rather than trying to obscure the differences within the profession, macroeconometricians should expose them. This choice involves practical problems, though. It's obvious, for example, that the book has to cover a lot of ground. The author, however, opted for writting a relatively thin book. Indeed, the book is almost like the collected notes of a grad student in an advanced course (especially because at many points the presentation is very similar to Greene's). It may be (and I think it is) very informative if you already know the stuff (some illustrative E-views programes throughout the book were especially interesting to me), but you won't learn from it. The huge amount of typos in this first edition (what happened to Oxford University Press quality control?) doesn't help it either.
So, the book doesn't work as a textbook (given its incredibly brief presentation of important topics), but is a nice collection of notes - with a correct approach - that will be very useful for the professional macroeconomist.

Mankiw's book has a good organization -- for what it has. He spends a lot of time laying out some key fundamental topics, such as unemployment, GDP, CPI, DJIA, and so forth.

However, his book is entirely mum on the fact that there are different schools of thought, e.g., Keynesians, Classicals, Monetarists, Austrians, etc. A reader comes away thinking that all economists agree with Mankiw, and that simply is not true. Many other principles-level economics books have specific chapters devoted to these schools of thought.

In my Macro classes, I put Mankiw on "reserve" in the library and suggest that students read the 5 chapters dealing with "The Data of Macroeconomics" and "The Real Economy in the Long Run." However, I use other text books for the rest of the course, since they explain why economists disagree, give better information about actual public policy issues, and help a student understand, e.g., what the federal reserve is doing, or why some politicians like deficit spending and others dislike it, or whether the trade deficit is important or not.

For a reader who merely wants to understand the core issues mentioned above, Mankiw is a good book which I highly recommend. For a reader who wants to understand the nature of the public policy debates over these core issues, Mankiw is a horrible book which I suggest that you avoid like the plague.

A nice intro, but as noted by another reviewer, very short shrift given to other schools of economic thought. A recommended reading list gives plenty of well-respected conservative writers, with Milton Friedman topping the list, but only Paul Krugman appears representing other thoughts, and he's singled out as a "liberal economist". I think there are somewhat more honest introductions to the subject.

In "Culture & Consumption", McCracken takes the view that we are all beholden to our culture and that it is nearly impossible to break out of it. Unlike the reviewer who gave this volume 5 stars, I feel as though it is overly determinstic in its' approach. There is almost no room for any type of individual behavior, as this does not really exist for McCracken. The book is also heavy on a kind of behavioral pop psych dogma and he does not take any other modern consumption ideas into account. In the end, check this book out from the library if you really want to read it, otherwise you're just throwing your money away on overused dogmatic tripe.

"Man is a rebel against nature. He is prone to accept few things as they come. In all matters it is his irrepressible belief that by his tinkering he can improve upon them. His instrument is culture." Mary Ellen Roach, Dress, Adornment, and The Social Order

Recall the last time you presented a gift to someone. Was it really a gift for them, or did you only give the gift so that the recipient would assume the symbolic properties of the item, and therefore become more like the person you would like them to be? How about your last major purchase-was it a replacement for something that no longer fits your standards, now that your standards no longer fit your past purchases? An individual would be hard pressed to come up with, let alone answer questions like these without serious thought and reflection, yet these and many others come to mind while reading "Culture and Consumption" by Grant McCracken.

Mr. McCracken beckons us to question ourselves, our motives, and the whole rationale behind what we are doing when we make a purchase in the marketplace, whether it is for ourselves or someone else. While popular opinion and social scientific study purport that materialism is one of the things that is most wrong with our society, the author shows that the goods that are so often identified as the unhappy, destructive preoccupation of a materialistic society are in fact one of the chief instruments of its survival-one of the ways in which its order is created and maintained.

While Mary Ellen Roach and others like her declared that yes, man likes to control things, Mr. McCracken goes many steps forward. He disregards and even insults former theorists on consumption in an attempt to reverse the gears of thinking on modern consumption practices. Accordingly, clothing is not language. In fact, clothing is "quite unlike language and best communicates cultural meaning when it departs from the syntagmatic principle on which language operates." Also, the popular trickle down theory of diffusion is actually "an upward "chase and flight" pattern created by a subordinate group that "hunts" upper class status makers and a superordinate social group that moves on in a hasty flight to new ones." Quite modestly, the author admits that his work "begins the rapprochement. It does not pretend to accomplish it."

Mr. McCracken demonstrates that all the other theories about consumption are wrong or at least flawed. He questions them, and then points the way to a new understanding of how and why we are consumers. By his decree, our culture follows very distinct consumption patterns. With his review of the history of consumption to the present day, the author shows a consistent and lineal progression to the mass misunderstanding of today's marketplace. According to him, culture and consumption are inextricably intertwined, and he has attempted to unweave the elements of this intimate rapport for our perusal.

He casts doubt upon our forefathers with startling clarity. What is reality to us-something we sometimes feel developed in complicated, pretentious ways-is in fact only the direct result of our revolutionary, rebellious founding. Mr. McCracken demands that we reevaluate and reconstruct the history of Western Civilization. All that we were, all that we are, and all that we strive to be is dictated to us by our consumption patterns. While one would hope for free will and liberty under democracy, in reality we are slaves to consumption.

While our consumption once freed us from our past, it now entraps us and dictates our futures. What the author terms the Diderot effect sums this up nicely. Basically it states that when one takes the cultural meaning of a new good as the carrier of privileged meaning, they are forced to make all the rest of their possessions consistent with it. To fail in this capacity would make our semblance inaccurate and inconsistent. With that Rolex you had better buy a BMW. To house that BMW you had better buy a condo on the beach. To fill that condo you had better buy Ethan Allen furniture. To sit on that furniture you had better get a Shar-Pei. To pet that Shar-Pei you had better get a gorgeous and wealthy spouse. When you're through with these "common" luxuries, you better collect Rembrandts, Van Goghs, and Picassos until your lust for the obscure is satiated. By that time you'll be dead and you can leave your compulsive obsessions to your children so that they can continue the warped tradition of bridging their ways to the ever elusive displaced meaning-that gap between the real and ideal in social life-like moths to a flame.

These points deserve to be more than noted. Throughout history, anthropologists have chosen to study the supply side of the Industrial Revolution. Mr. McCracken offers a most refreshing viewpoint of the demand side of the equation. With unique insight, Mr. McCracken uses clothing as a prototypical item of contemporary culture and shows us how it has shaped and dominated our lives. Throughout this collection of essays, he tears down the old order of consumption theory and constructs a new one-one that has never seen the light of day.

For anyone ready to face the marketplace through marketing or advertising, and begin the long overdue look at how and why we consume, there could not be a more congenial conversationalist than Mr. McCracken.

This textbook contained a lot of technical information but offered little connection to real-life macroeconomics. I love economics and feel that it is necessary to emphasize its everyday uses in order to motivate a student's learning.

Further, it is in no means a stand-alone text. By that I mean that it is not a text that can be utilized by a student independent of participation in a traditional classroom setting. Most of the topics are not expanded upon sufficiently to create true understanding of the concepts.

I used this book for a distance learning course in the principles of macroeconomics (Econ 101) and it is by far the best introductory text in macroeconomics I have encountered. Bade and Parkin explain the theory and concepts very clearly and constantly use examples of a typical consumer or company to illustrate these concepts even though they are describing a macroeconomy. For those of you who have taken Principles of Microeconomics before Macro, this is a HUGE PLUS, and for those of you who are taking Macro before Micro, you will not feel a sense of disconnect when you begin microecon after this class. The authors do a fine job integrating areas of micro and macroecon and not make the two feel incompatible. What's more, they do not leave out crucial explanations to graphs, figures and equations so those who do not have a strong background in mathematics need not be intimidated. The graphs,figures and equations indeed supplement the narrative and sufficient examples are given so you can master the quantitative aspects of the course. Just don't take short cuts and do read the entire chapter and concepts will sink in like you wouldn't believe. This is the 3rd time in my life I have attempted a study of macroeconomics and my efforts have previously been held back because of texts that were too complex or theoretical. I am now pulling a strong A and this is because the text does a good job of lowering the entry barrier to learning economics without sacrificing academic rigor.

This book was required for my intermediate macroeconomics course at Cornell University. I found the book to be very confusing, especially on the more technical topics such as the Solow growth model. I give Abel and Bernanke credit for trying to develop a unified, balanced approach to macro... which they do; unfortunately, the exposition is not clear and the book is extremely wordy and not concise. I highly recommend N. Gregory Mankiw's Macroeconomics text instead.

I have the good fortune of studying under Prof. Abel at The Wharton School. Of course, we use this book as our required text! The book is excellent, and is very easy to understand. A good introduction for the layperson interested in the macro economy.

The book is a favorite at the University of Chicago, an institution that has produced 20 Nobel Prize Laureates in Economics. You couldn't ask for a better recommendation.

First, Colander still has many errors in his book (ie, the Taylor Rule). Second, he does not present the material very clearly and does not really show how all the principles fit together. For an introduction to economics, this book would have persuaded me to be an art history major. This book needs to cut the ... and explain the principles.

David Colander has dedicated this book to T. Veblen and F. Knight and while these authors are not representative of the content of the text they are representative of its mood and outlook.

Colander's book, while not ideal (whose is?), is a better than average text. While the book does contain a few errors, they are minor in comparison to other texts that I have used in the past. In comparison with other texts, the strength of Colander's book is that it provides room for alternative viewpoints. While mainstream economic theories are covered they are done so in way that encourages critical thinking. Rather than presenting mainstream economic principles as a series of universally applicable "laws" Colander treats them as theories that are open to question.

I have used this text in my classes for the last few years and have found students to have a generally favorable impression of the text. It is written in a very accessible style and is easy to read. At the same time it does not make any compromises in terms of the rigor of its content. The difficulty level of the text is average, and the length and breadth of the text is appropriate for a one-semester course in macroeconomics.

This book was incredibly helpful in my macroeconomics studies, and was definitely the thing that contributed to my success in the course. I used it in my high school AP class, and it was not only easy to read but also very informative. It made it both fun and easy to learn the subject matter. The use of casual language, anecdotal evidence, and full explanations made the reading very understandable. Colander is a brilliant man and a professor at Middlebury College, where he is well-known for being an intelligent, fascinating, and great teacher. This excellent teaching is reflected in his writings, and I highly recommend this textbook.

Parkin does a good job of introducing the elements, and is particularly helpful with the graphs. However, he labors, generally unnecessarily, concepts that are quite straightforward. He is not very good in the macroeconomic, especially fiscal and monetary, parts of the book. More applied examples would also have been helpful.

Parkin does a wonderful job of explaining the intricate concepts behind microeconomics and macroeconomics. The emphasis of this textbook is on understanding, and Parkin clearly makes an effort to elucidate every graph and concept presented. Although Parkin's text overlooks the mathematics of economics, it is superb for an introductory level Economics course.

Through close reading of this textbook, I was able to fully understand economic terms and the graphing of economic forces (supply/demand curves, GDP curves, aggregate supply/demand curves, etc.) Parkin's explanation of each graph facilitated a true understanding of economics.

With excellent, easy-to-understand writing and extensive use of graphs, Parkin's guide served as an Economics bible, and I did not need any supplementary reading for the course. Although a little confusing in certain areas such as growth theory, as a whole, Parkin's text is undoubtedly the only textbook you'll ever need.

Parkin's text is probably one of the best introductory textbooks for economics. The primary criticisms of Parkin's text seem to stem from its perspective on teaching economics. Parkin presents the full breadth of "high economics" - a means of analyzing and resolving problems of scarcity. Parkin stresses the underlying problems that the techniqiues of analysis are designed to address rather than merely reciting mathematical formulae that seem to exist in a vacuum.

Parkin's graphs and explanations are generally excellent and well worth reading.

To Parkin's credit, he clearly distinguishes between positive and normative conclusions of economics. Many introductory textbooks become dogmatic regarding the author's conclusions.

Some readers apparently do not like the additional information and text boxes that Parkin includes in this book. These criticisms appear to be misguided. One of this book's greatest strengths is that it is not afraid to admit that it is introductory. In many ways the best introductory texts are survey-type books that allow you to learn the language and primary concerns of that field of study. Further courses in price theory, public choice, welfare economics, antitrust, money & banking all rely on a strong conceptual understanding of basic economics. After reading Parkin the careful reader will be able to comprehend the primary considerations of economics and communicate with more advanced scholars in this field.