Economic Principles and Problems - A Pluralist Introduction

Special Sale for Roskilde University Basic Course in Socio-Economics

Geoffrey Schneider

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9781040023952
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Economic Principles and Problems: A Pluralistic Introduction offers a comprehensive introduction to the major perspectives in modern economics, including mainstream and heterodox approaches. Through providing multiple views of markets and how they work, it leaves readers better able to understand and analyze the complex behaviors of consumers, firms, and government officials, as well as the likely impact of a variety of economic events and policies.

Most principles of economics textbooks cover only mainstream economics, ignoring rich heterodox ideas. They also lack material on the great economists, including the important ideas of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, John Maynard Keynes, and Friedrich Hayek. Mainstream books tend to neglect the kind of historical analysis that is crucial to understanding trends that help us predict the future. Moreover, they focus primarily on abstract models more than existing economic realities. This engaging book addresses these inadequacies. Including explicit coverage of mainstream economics and the major heterodox schools of economic thought—institutionalists, feminists, radical political economists, post-Keynesians, Austrians, and social economists—it allows the reader to choose which ideas they find most compelling in explaining modern economic realities.

Written in an engaging style and focused on real-world examples, this textbook brings economics to life. Multiple examples of how each economic model works, coupled with critical analysis of the assumptions behind them, enable students to develop a sophisticated understanding of the material. Digital supplements are also available for students and instructors. Economic Principles and Problems offers the most contemporary and complete package for any pluralist economics class.

Table of contents

• Cover
• 1 What is economics?
• 4 Adam Smith and the rise of capitalism
• 5 Karl Marx and the dark ages of capitalism
• 6 Thorstein Veblen and monopoly capitalism
• 7 Keynes and mixed market capitalism
• 19 Market failure and government failure
• 20 The economics of the environment and climate change
• 23 Inequality, a key modern issue
• 25 Macroeconomic well-being
• 30 Money, banking, and the financial sector
• 32 Crises, financial and otherwise