Introduction to Economic Analysis

Reviewed by Brendan Cushing Daniels, Associate Professor or Economics, Gettysburg College on 4/20/20

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

Unless I am missing it because the file I downloaded is incomplete, there is no index or glossary, nor is there a table of contents. The comprehensiveness of the material itself in terms of topics covered is quite good - better, in fact, than many other intermediate textbooks. However, the depth of coverage of many of the topics is not as good as other textbooks.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

There are few obvious errors in the text.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

There are few enough specifics that can go out of date quickly, but there are too few concrete examples as a result.

Clarity rating: 5

The text is clearly written and accessible.

Consistency rating: 5

Not only internally consistent, but students who have taken an introductory course using any standard text would find it easy to access the material in this textbook.

Modularity rating: 5

Chapters are broken down into manageable parts that would allow students to read effectively in shorter doses rather than sit and read through a longer chapter at a time, something many students cannot do with great retention.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

Most intermediate micro texts take consumer theory before producer theory so that after developing the latter, the book can seamlessly transition to market structures other than perfectly competitive. This book flips consumer and producer theory, and I don't think that works. There are other choices of organizational structure I found odd, but I admit it could be due to overexposure to standard treatment in other textbooks.

Interface rating: 4

I cannot be sure that the problems I have reading the equations throughout are not due to my own computer/interface, but I found the equations in particular difficult to read clearly.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The book is largely free of grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

Largely non-gendered, non-culture specific with the obvious exceptions like the chapter on the US economy.

Comments

For an open source textbook, the several hundred dollar savings to students more than outweighs its shortcomings.

Reviewed by Bryan Buckley, Assistant Teaching Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on 2/10/20

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

There are two margins for comprehensiveness that need to be considered: the number of concepts and the depth of any particular concept.
The text covers most of the main topics covered in an intermediate microeconomic theory course and some additional chapters which can be covered at the discretion of the instructor. There was one, noticeable oversight for me, the text does leave out cross-price and income elasticity. There are likely places where the text does not cover a topic that an instructor feels is important.
Relative to a standard textbook, this book has fewer graphs to illustrate concepts, a quicker explanation of math, and shorter chapters. There are no specific mathematical examples to help guide students. Students who do not have much experience with applying math to economics will likely be lost.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The accuracy of the material is high. However, there are places where the authors define profit in a way which is actually producer surplus to most economists. There are likely other places that will stand out to any particular instructor.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

Occasionally, the text will use examples that seem 10 to 20 years old like “camcorders.”
Some of the time series data ends in by 2010, some in the year 2000.

Clarity rating: 3

Often, the language is informal and conversational. This is a good feature.
However, the introduction of the math is high-level. The math will potentially alienate students who take the course who are less comfortable with calculus. The math in the chapters is limited to general forms. This will lead to problems for students who need more concrete examples when being introduced to a concept.

Consistency rating: 5

The book is consistent in the style of presentation and in the use of terminology and concepts.

Modularity rating: 5

Each chapter is relatively self-contained. Instructors should be able to choose which concepts fit their course with ease. Additionally, each chapter is subdivided, and instructors could choose from within a chapter as well.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

Overall the organization is clear and logical. Students are given Key Takeaways that summarize the information in a chapter. These work well. Students are also given Exercises to practice the concepts, however there are no solutions. Some Exercises are introduced before the material required to answer the question is introduced. For instance, students are asked to draw an Edgeworth box in CH 6 when the concept is not covered until CH 14.

Interface rating: 4

Critically, there are many places where the math does not seem to display properly. There are other formatting issues like “Unexpected text node: ‘.” Firefox was able to display the math correctly, while Google Chrome and Internet Explorer were not. The issue is also present in the PDF version. Instructors will need to ensure that students are able to access the textbook in a way that does not have these formatting issues.
Graphs have no color. While this is helpful for students who wish to print out the text, it does miss the opportunities that color coding can provide.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

Occasionally, there seems to be a formatting error that combines words. It is not terribly difficult to figure out. The most problematic instance is when “a positive” becomes “apositive” which makes the ‘a’ seem like a prefix for positive.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

Much of economics is separate from discussions of culture. The text is fairly standard in its approach and focuses on typical examples and markets that will be familiar to other texts.

Comments

The text varies between intuitive discussions of real-world markets and deep mathematics. The intuitive portions of the text will be something that students at the intermediate level will be able to understand easily. The authors cover many different, relevant topics in this style.
However, things become much more difficult when the text introduces math. The math is quickly introduced in its most general forms. This will prove difficult for students who have not applied calculus to economics before. I believe only the students who are extremely comfortable with calculus will be able to read the text and follow the math.
Additionally, there seems to be a formatting error when the math is displayed. Students and instructors will need to test several browsers to see which one accurately displays the equations. For my experience, Firefox was able to display the math correctly, while Google Chrome and Internet Explorer were not.

Reviewed by Hanzhe Zhang, Assistant Professor, Michigan State University on 10/19/19

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

The book covers all the necessary topics, starting from a series of introductory and overview chapters, to fundamental consumer and producer theories, to game theory and its applications and beyond.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The book is quite concise and covers all the standard topics.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Since the book covers all the core topics of intermediate microeconomics, it should not be obsolete for a while.

Clarity rating: 5

The text is quite concise, complemented by end-of-section summaries.

Consistency rating: 5

The book is internally consistent in terms of terminology and framework.

Modularity rating: 5

Each chapter in the book is relatively short and can be covered in a 1.5-hour class period.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The topics in the text are presented in a logical, clear fashion.

Interface rating: 4

The equations in the textbook can be better typeset, for example, the equations associated with elasticities can be improved.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text has been tested and tried, is free of errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The text, as most economics texts, uses dispassionate language.

Comments

The first review of the book was off in my opinion, because the reviewer thought this book was about econometrics but in fact it has nothing to do with econometrics.

Reviewed by Christine Luketic, Adjunct Professor/ Instructor, Virginia Tech on 2/8/17

Comprehensiveness rating: 1 see less

The title of this book is misleading. It is a book about economics and economic theory, but not about economic analyses, or econometrics. My rating on comprehensiveness is referring directly to the lack of applied econometric and economic analysis material as you would find in a text as by Stock and Watson, or Angrist, et al

Content Accuracy rating: 1

I cannot assess the accuracy because I expected it to be a book regarding economic analysis and econometrics. It is not.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The text appears to be clearly laid out and easily updatable

Clarity rating: 4

The clarity and ease of reading is fairly direct.

Consistency rating: 5

The text is internally consistent in terms of terminology and framework.

Modularity rating: 5

Yes

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

Yes

Interface rating: 4

Yes, there do not appear to be any navigational issues

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I did not read every part of the text, but the sections that I did review did not appear to have grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

I did not find any outstanding examples of cultural relevance

Comments

I was excited at the idea of an on-line free economic analysis book/ econometrics book that would be accessible to students and general audiences alike. This text has a significant amount of value in its content. However, the title should be changed to be more relevant