The Microeconomics Anti-Textbook: A Critical Thinker's Guide - second edition

by Rod Hill, Tony Myatt

Overview

Mainstream textbooks present economics as an objective science, free from value judgements. The Microeconomics Anti-Textbook demonstrates this to be a myth – one which serves to make such textbooks not only off-puttingly bland, but also dangerously misleading in their justification of the status quo and neglect of alternatives.

In this fully updated and expanded edition of their celebrated book, Professors Rod Hill and Tony Myatt lay out the essentials of each topic in the standard texts in a clear and concise way, before presenting an 'anti-text' analysis and critique. Challenging the assumptions, arguments, and models, Hill and Myatt provide the essential guide to decoding the textbooks, and show that real economics is far more interesting - and subversive - than the simplistic version presented to students.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350523562
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/03/2024
Pages:	396
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.15(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Rod Hill is a Professor of Economics in the Faculty of Business at the University of New Brunswick's Saint John campus.

Tony Myatt is a Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics at the University of New Brunswick's Fredericton campus.

Table of Contents

Introduction - Our Goals, Audience, and Principal Themes
1. What is economics? Where you start influences where you go
2. Introducing economic models
3. How markets work (in an imaginary world)
4. People as consumers
5. The firm
6. Market Structure and Efficiency - or why perfect competition isn't so perfect after all.
7. Externalities, common access resources and public goods: the ubiquity of market failure
8. The marginal productivity theory of income distribution - or you're worth what you can get
9. Government, taxation, and the (re)distribution of income: is a just society just too expensive?
10. Trade and globalization without the rose-tinted glasses
Conclusion
Postscript: A case study of climate change and the textbooks

Editorial Reviews

Rod Hill and Tony Myatt do an excellent job of clearly explaining the problems with how Economics 101 is usually taught while showing how additional insights-overlooked in first-year textbooks-provide a much richer account of how the economy operates. The Microeconomics Anti-Textbook is a valuable resource not only for students but also for anyone who wants to understand both the power and the limits of economic analysis.” —James Kwak, Jesse Root Professor of Law, University of Connecticut, USA

“The Microeconomics Anti-Textbook: A Critical Thinker's Guide should be required reading for everyone who has ever read an economics textbook. With clarity, honesty and passion, it demolishes the myth that standard economics texts are unbiased, neutral guides to the world around us. Reading the Anti-Textbook won't just make you a better economist, but a better person too.” —Jonathan Aldred, Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, UK

From the Publisher