Principles of Microeconomics

Book Preface

Our goal in the 11th edition, as it was in the first edition, is to instill in students a fascination with both the functioning of the economy and the power and breadth of economics. The first line of every edition of our book has been “The study of economics should begin with a sense of wonder.” We hope that readers come away from our book with a basic understanding of how market economies function, an appreciation for the things they do well, and a sense of the things they do poorly. We also hope that readers begin to learn the art and science of economic thinking and begin to look at some policy and even personal decisions in a different way.

What’s New in This Edition?

• The 11 th edition has continued the changes in the Economics in Practice boxes that we began several editions ago. In these boxes, we try to bring economic thinking to the concerns of the typical student. In many cases, we do this by spotlighting recent research, much of it by young scholars. Chapter 3 looks at the demand response of students to textbook price rises, a topic of real concern to students. Chapter 4 looks at why there may be more “foodies” in New York City than in many other parts of the country using recent research on urban amenities. How has an app on the iPhone affected the truthfulness of snow resort forecasts? We discuss research on this topic in Chapter 17 .

• For each box, we have also added questions to take students back from the box to the analytics of the textbook to reinforce the underlying economic principles of the illustrations.

• As in the previous edition, we have reworked some of the chapters to streamline them and to improve readability. In this edition, Chapters 2 and 3 , as well as Chapters 8 and 9 , have been substantially reworked, while many of the other chapters have been tightened and made more current.

• Many new questions and problems at the end of the chapters have been added.

• Many graphs and tables have been heavily revised and updated to include the most recent data available from 2010 through 2012. The inclusion of up-to-date studies and data is essential to promoting a better understanding of recent microeconomic developments