In his excellent post titled “Fixing the Economy, Try it Teaching Economists,” Alex Salter does a good survey of some of the best books for teaching introductory economics, intermediate microeconomics, and advanced economics.
I largely agree with his assessment but have a slight difference in the introductory and intermediate economics sections.
Introductory Economics
My favorite text for teaching introductory economics, Alex doesn’t mention it An Economic Approach to Thinking by Paul Heyne, Peter Boettke, and David Prychitko. I have a few minor criticisms of the book, but only a few. I was successful in teaching US Navy officers in the Executive MBA degree course. Yes, I have added a number of readings though An Economic Approach to Thinking was the key.
I will also note that you don’t have to use or provide a new program. Textbooks change very little from edition to edition and are not always for the better. One thing I did for my readers was to recommend that they buy used copies of the two editions prior to the current issue. That way they save a lot of money.
Intermediate Microeconomics
I agree with Alex that Steven Landsburg’s Value Theory and Applications very good. As an economist, I liked David Friedman’s Value Theory: An Intermediate Text a lot. And certainly the price, given that David is giving it away for free on the line, is a strong selling point. But as a teacher, I didn’t like it as much as Landsburg’s text.
Here is the reason.
When we teach economics, one of the things we do is to open students’ eyes to show them something that is counterintuitive but makes sense. All good books do some of this. In my opinion, David Friedman’s book does a lot in this regard. The one that was the show stopper for me and convinced me to use Landsburg’s text instead of Friedman’s, was David’s section titled “Application: Housing Prices—A Conundrum.” He shows that once you buy a house, you are better off when the price goes up but you are also better off when the price goes down. See if you can figure out why before looking at that part of the book.
That one request convinced me that I would have to use so much horsepower driving that point home that I would have little time for other things. Moreover, it is true only in a narrow sense: you buy a house to consume “real estate services.” So you clearly state that you are using all the housing services provided by the house. But what if you buy one house to live in and one to speculate on? His argument falls apart. So, if you convince the readers that you are right, you will convince them of a small point but miss the broader point which is probably the way they think and is right.
Twenty-five years ago, a student in our program at the Naval Postgraduate School told a colleague the following story. Starting as an Ensign fresh out of the Naval Academy, he invested in real estate. When he got enough money from one house, he borrowed it and bought another. Eventually he started buying duplexes. Then the four-plexus. Rinse and repeat. By the time he was on our show, he had an estimated net worth of $6 million. He benefited greatly when housing prices rose.
I say, with some trepidation, that David is wrong. When I first met David, at a conference at Columbia University in the fall of 1971, I learned from both of his lectures, things I had never thought about. So maybe he can convince me on this. I doubt it though.
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