Product Description

McConnell and Brue�s Economics: Principles, Problems, and Policies is the leading Principles of Economics textbook because it is innovative and teaches students in a clear, unbiased way. The 17th Edition builds upon the tradition of leadership with three main goals: help the beginning student master the principles essential for understanding the economizing problem, specific economic issues, and the policy alternatives; help the student understand and apply the economic perspective and reason accurately and objectively about economic matters; and promote a lasting student interest in economics and the economy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18930 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 808 pages

Customer Reviews

An excellent presentation of economic theory and its application to real world problems and issues.
As an instructor of economics who uses this book for undergraduate classes, I would say McConnell and Brue's book is probably the best text to introduce students who may have no background or appreciation for the study of economics. This is the latest edition of the text, and each edition tries to take into account the current trends in society. It is well written and contains clear, concise analyses to examine important concepts and principles that have taken centuries to theorize and to validate. The authors also use several real world examples and case studies to help the reader apply economic concepts to business and societal problems. I still remember using an earlier edition of the authors' text when I was an undergraduate student a number of years ago. I found it meaningful and practical then , and I find it quite valuable now as a teacher. Some things never change!

I would higly recommend this text to students taking their introductory courses in economics. The material presented is quite relevant to the development of an understanding and appreciation of how humans and society satisfy their unilimited wants and needs given scarce resources and limited choices. I like to refer to it as "the philosophy of life." It never put me to sleep! No wonder why numerous academic institutions use Macconell and Brue's book as the standard text for their introductory economic courses.

Economics 17th edition
I used this text in an Econ class last semester (my first in a few years) and this book was great. The summaries were helpful, there are several in each chapter instead of one at the end, that's very handy when you're looking for specific information. There are lots of charts to help with the formulas. My favorite areas included the chapters on Antitrust Policy and Regulation, Agriculture, Income Inequality, and the Costs of Production. Economics can be pretty dry subject matter, luckily I also had a lively instructor. Obviously as a student you don't get much say in which text you use, but this is a good one.

Generally awful, saved by summaries
If you have the misfortune of being assigned this book, I feel for you. The book is filled with needlessly complicated explanations, some of which don't contribute anything to the subject. The authors love to interrupt sentences with variables and equations that could have been saved for information boxes.

The only thing that made this book tolerable is that figure captions and summaries were left to a competent editor. The book could be cut in half with a sufficiently critical editing pass. Don't buy this if your curriculum offers a choice of books.

Edit:

One thing to keep in mind while reading is that the text references graphs that appear 1-3 pages before or after the mention. When you come to a graph, keep a placemark on that page. Any text that references a graph is almost unintelligible without the graph, and that constitutes about 70% of each chapter.