Microeconomics For Public Decisions

Microeconomics for Public Decisions is a revision of the Apgar/Brown Microeconomics for Public Policy text. It was revised after conducting interviews with students and former students (now practitioners), and asking them what economic concepts and methods they use most frequently in their jobs. Microeconomics for Public Decisions is designed to focus on essential principles and analytical techniques for making decision that affect the public interest. It blends theory with applications and discussions so students will understand how and why microeconomics is important, how to perform economic analyses, and how to evaluate economic analyses performed by others.

Fourth Edition

The origin of this work is to be found in the cyclostyled course on 'The optimal allocation of resources in the firm and in the Nation' taught by Mr Boiteux at the Centre d'Etudes des Programmes Economiques (C. E. P. E. ), Paris from 1957 to 1960. Of course, several successive later rewritings and a great many additions have profoundly altered the initial version: starting from a remarkably clear and concise exposition of eco nomic theory, we have ended with a book that is several hundred pages long. It is not at all certain that Mr Boiteux would recognise this intellec tual sponsorship. Nor is it certain that the gain in information justifies such an increase in size. However that may be, the initial plan has survived. Without Mr Boiteux this book would never have been undertaken: it is a pleasant duty for us respectfully to acknowledge our debt to him here. Microeconomic analysis, that is to say that analysis which results from the study of the behaviour and activities of individual decision-units, was for a long time the main concern of the neo-classicists. Quite recently the introduction of macroeconomic theory, dealing with aggregate quan tities, seemed to relegate it to second place. But this is not where it belongs: we tend to agree with Mr Raymond Barre that there are "two different scales of analysis that complement rather than contrast with one another".

This book shows, from start to finish, how microeconomics can and should be used in the analysis of public policy problems. It is an exciting new way to learn microeconomics, motivated by its application to important, real-world issues. Lee Friedman's modern replacement for his influential 1984 work not only brings the issues addressed into the present but develops all intermediate microeconomic theory to make this book accessible to a much wider audience. Friedman offers the microeconomic tools necessary to understand policy analysis of a wide range of matters of public concern--including the recent California electricity crisis, welfare reform, public school finance, global warming, health insurance, day care, tax policies, college loans, and mass transit pricing. These issues are scrutinized through microeconomic models that identify policy strengths, weaknesses, and ideas for improvements. Each chapter begins with explanations of several fundamental microeconomic principles and then develops models that use and probe them in analyzing specific public policies. The book has two primary and complementary goals. One is to develop skills of economic policy analysis: to design, predict the effects of, and evaluate public policies. The other is to develop a deep understanding of microeconomics as an analytic tool for application--its strengths and extensions into such advanced techniques as general equilibrium models and pricing methods for natural monopolies and its weaknesses, such as behavioral inconsistencies with utility-maximization models and its limits in comparing institutional alternatives. The result is an invaluable professional and academic reference, one whose clear explanation of principles and analytic techniques, and wealth of constructive applications, will ensure it a prominent place not only on the bookshelves but also on the desks of students and professionals alike.

This book contains a concise, simple, yet precise discussion of externalities, public goods and insurance. Rooted in the first fundamental theorem of welfare economics and in noncooperative equilibrium, it employs elementary calculus. The book presents established theory in novel ways, and offers the tools for the application of the social welfare criteria of efficiency and equity to environmental economics, networks, bargaining, political economy, and the pricing of public goods and public utilities. This innovative, user-friendly textbook will be of use over a broad range of disciplines. The applications found here include international global-warming issues (North vs. South model), and bargaining over externalities (Coase's theorem). This text also introduces the Wicksell-Lindahl model in its original form, which depicts the parliamentary negotiation between representative parties and provides an effective introduction to political economy. Later, these ideas are applied to the pricing of an excludable public good, revealing the theoretical connection between public utility pricing and the pricing of excludable public goods. The text integrates three forms of discourse: verbal, graphical, and formal. Elementary calculus is frequently used, allowing for clarity and precision; qualities that are often missing in conventional textbooks. The main text considers a finite number of consumers and appendices cover the continuum mathematical model, which is implicit in the references to the 'marginal consumer' found in traditional texts. The analysis found in Public Microeconomics is simple and operational, conducive to computationally easy examples and exercises. This textbook is ideally suited to graduate and upper-level undergraduate courses in economics, political science, policy and philosophy.

Microeconomics; a journey through life's decisions starts with the important building blocks of microeconomic theory studied on all intermediate microeconomics courses, this text goes further than any other. It presents microeconomic theory as a debate, questions theoretical exposition, considers future developments and emphasises the social dimension of microeconomics as a framework in which economists attempt to interpret the world.

What is Public Choice "the use of economic tools to deal with traditional problems of political science" is what is meant by the term "public choice," additionally known as "public choice theory." An examination of political behavior is included in its scope of coverage. Within the realm of political science, the subfield of positive political theory is responsible for the investigation of self-interested agents and the interactions between them. These interactions can be represented in a variety of ways, including the utilization of game theory, decision theory, or standard limited utility maximization. Additionally, it serves as the intellectual basis for the work that is being done in the field of political economy today. How you will benefit (I) Insights, and validations about the following topics: Chapter 1: Public choice Chapter 2: Logrolling Chapter 3: Rational choice theory Chapter 4: Political economy Chapter 5: James M. Buchanan Chapter 6: The Calculus of Consent Chapter 7: Gordon Tullock Chapter 8: Government failure Chapter 9: Philosophy and economics Chapter 10: Economic methodology Chapter 11: Social Choice and Individual Values Chapter 12: Virginia school of political economy Chapter 13: Robert Tollison Chapter 14: The Myth of the Rational Voter Chapter 15: Public economics Chapter 16: Rational irrationality Chapter 17: Vincent Ostrom Chapter 18: Constitutional economics Chapter 19: Altruism theory of voting Chapter 20: Benefit principle Chapter 21: Efficient Voter Rule (II) Answering the public top questions about public choice. (III) Real world examples for the usage of public choice in many fields. Who this book is for Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of Public Choice.

Monograph on the methodology of public policy analysis in the context of government policy decision making in the USA - includes references.