economics-textbook

As stated, good cases -still apply to modern business, however, technology demonstrated in the cases is circa '92.

I have taught a Development Communication class for a Masters Program in International and intercultural communication for over 5 years. The field definitely needs a well written, interesting and relevant textbook. Dr. Moemeka has contributed for many years to the field of development communication through his focus on creating awareness about the need to include participants in the development process, and by acknowledging the global perspective in the field. I used his previous book, Communicating for Development a Pan Disciplinary Perspective until this book was published. The earlier book was adequate for class, required supplemental readings, but was interesting and focused on important issues in the field. However, the class and I were very disappointed in Development Communication in Action - there is no consistency in the writing, the editing is very poor, and the book is full of typos and English grammar errors. The publisher should be embarassed to charge the book fee. We still need a good text for the field.

I used this book for a college intro to economics class. It has a lot of information for someone who doesn't know a lot about economics and the economy...maybe too much.

I found myself pushing to get through chapters because they were boring and many of the diagrams were confusing. Some of the concepts aren't very clear.

The CD that came with mine was a huge help. I would print off the study guides before I read the chapter, so I would pay the most attention to those parts because those are the ones the author thought were important.

This book had a lot of econ math in it that I was unable to understand. The CD didn't address that very well. Consequently, those are the questions that I missed on the tests.

A thoughtful, and general overview of the work of this eclectic and influential resort architect. While the text is well written, the total lack of any siteplans, floorplans, and elevations cause this book to provide only a partial understanding of Mizner's work. All photos are black and white, and while this serves to keep the book modestly priced, it also severely limits the reader's enjoyment. Still, for the cost a worthwhile bargain.

As advertised, the book is an overview of what academic researchers have learned about influence in organization. It doesn't offer any startlingly brilliant insights, and is more academically-oriented rather than practicioner-oriented. I'd advise buying Cialdini's "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" instead!

First of all, I must admit that my major isn't related to economics, so I had little previous knowledge of economics when I began reading the book. I was simply looking for an introduction to microeconomics and sort of randomly bumped into this book. I found that the authors' exposition of various topics is not very clear and the explanations are sometimes lacking sufficient detail. More importantly, the order of presentation needs improvement; quite often I found myself going back and forth in the pages of the book, trying to understand what the authors want to say. If you are looking for an introductory textbook in microeconomics, you can probably find something much better (I might suggest one of Varian's books, depending on your mathematical background; I found "Intermediate Microeconomics" quite good).

The subtitle of Patterson's book indicates his main theme: federalism in transition. The transition was from the old-style, traditional federalism that existed prior to the 1930s, to the new, "cooperative federalism" that came into being. The New Deal was enacted under the auspices of this cooperation between the federal and state governments. Patterson examines this relationship, how effective it was, and its results.

The implementation of the New Deal was, of course, a very contentious issue. The cooperative federalism that was supposed to be going on often failed to live up to its name. There were constant battles between federal agents and state politicians and administrators. The federal officials criticized the states for their poor administrative systems, while the state representatives complained that the federal government was not contributing enough money, and what money they did contribute was distributed improperly. Roosevelt wanted to leave the states alone as much as possible, allowing them to experiment in their own way whenever it was feasible. Patterson believes, however, that the system would have been better implemented, and the people better served, had the states been given a lesser role. Ultimately, Roosevelt realized that legislation at the national level was the best solution for the problems facing a modern nation.

No two people, according to Patterson, seem to agree on the New Deal's impact on the states. Those friendly to it described it as a blessing. Others argued that it was discriminatory, enriching some states at the expense of others. Conservatives saw it as an autocratic Leviathan, while liberals thought it too timid and conservative. Patterson seems to agree with the liberals. He criticizes some of the New Deal policies (e.g. the use of the formula for federal matching grants for state relief), but he also believes that the federal government did not do nearly all that it could.

Patterson does view cooperative federalism, and the impact it had on the states, positively. It brought about improvements in state government, particularly in the areas of administrative efficiency and the expansion of the merit system in public personnel administration. It also hastened the spread of social legislation (e.g. Social Security, unemployment relief, and labor reform), especially in those states that passed "little New Deals." The New Deal also increased political participation in many states by appealing to previously ignored groups, particularly the underprivileged-blacks, the unemployed, immigrants. Not incidentally, these groups tended to vote Democratic, thus reinforcing the call for more liberal social services.

Perhaps the most important, lasting effect of the New Deal (and cooperative federalism) on the states was the centralization of American life, and, by extension, the centralization of power. During the 1930s, authority passed from the states to the national government and has remained there ever since. The primary reason for this was the states simply lacked the ability to cope with the problems of urban, mid-twentieth century America. The federal government, therefore, was forced to step in and attempt to solve these problems at the national level. They assumed a much larger role in both the economic and social health of the states. Relations between the federal and state governments were never to be the same again.

"Adam Smith", author of the engrossing and witty book "The Money Game" and the entertaining, if not enthralling "Supermoney", returns to the scene to write this rather dull treatise on the 1970's.
While he retains a bit of the wit and sparkle of his earlier books, "Smith" becomes quickly bogged down by OPEC, a force he can understand but not comprehend. His understanding comes from the historical perspective - he writes an informative and enlightening, though not entertaining, history of the organization. However, he tends to focus on the purchasing power of the OPEC countries, rather than realizing that OPEC had reached a peak in it's power by the time his book was published. Granted, we cannot expect Mr. Smith to have predicted what would happen to OPEC. On the other hand, he surely cannot have thought that the US would be reduced to supplying military equipment to the new Arabic superpowers (this, he implies, is essentially the only way we can attain anything approaching an import/export balance with Saudi Arabia).
A few chapters are spent on real estate, the market for which Mr. Smith thinks is now controlled by speculators and people attempting to hedge against inflation. He decides that the long bull market in housing has finally ended. Alas for Mr. Smith's reputation, it has yet to do so, with the median price for a home increasing every year since his book was written (as it had done every year before).
Mr. Smith, however, manages to redeem himself near the end of the book, when he makes his stock market prediction. At the time he wrote the book, the Dow was at 900. He predicted that within ten years, it would rise to 2700, an amazingly accurate guess. However, in reading his reasons for a prediction, we can see that his bullishness has almost nothing to do with what actually moved the market. Overall, this book is worthwhile only to the true Adam Smith fanatic or to someone trying to thouroughly research the economic situation of the 1970's.

Please provide Table of Contents if the publisher wants to sell the book.

Almost half of the book is devoted to the appendices, which contain numerous useful checklists, forms, financial spreadsheets and sample agreements.

Since this is an easy introductory text, the book does not delve into the difficult (but much more interesting) topics such as feasibility analysis, community opposition to development, and equity financing.