Invitation To Economics: Understanding Argument And Policy - 09 edition

List of Boxes.Preface.1. Introduction.1.1 What This Book Provides.1.2 Looking around Corners.1.3 Ideological Stance.1.4 Economics Embedded in Philosophy and Sociology.1.5 My Own Biases.1.6 What Is to Come?.Part I: The Subject of Economics:.2. What Economists Do.2.1 What Economics Encompasses.2.2 How Economists Work.2.3 Some Characteristics of Economics.Appendix 2.1: Unrealistic Assumptions Can a Good Theory Make.Appendix 2.2: Is the Stock Market Efficient?.3. How Well Do They Do It?.3.1 Forecasting.3.2 Choosing the Right Policies: The Problem of Value Judgments.3.3 Implementing Economic Policies.3.4 Biases.3.5 Disagreement among Economists.Appendix 3.1: A Survey of American Academic Economists' Opinions.Part II: Some Infrastructure:.4. Beguiling Words.4.1 Some Widely Used Terms and Phrases.4.2 Some Terms and Phrases Relating to Economics and Politics.5. Important Economic Ideas: Often Misunderstood.5.1 Levels versus Rates of Change.5.2 Stocks versus Flows.5.3 Real versus Nominal.5.4 Future versus Current Dollars.5.5 The Price Level versus Relative Prices.5.6 Stable Prices versus Low Prices.5.7 Gross versus Net and Single versus Double Counting.5.8 Opportunity Costs versus Monetary Costs.5.9 Cost--Benefit Analysis.5.10 Wage Rates versus Labor Costs.5.11 Capital Goods versus Human Capital.5.12 Marginal versus Average Utility.5.13 Marginal versus Average Costs.5.14 Big Business versus Market Power.5.15 Pro-market versus Pro-business.6.16 ''Should'' and ''Can'' versus ''Will''.5.17 Comparative versus Absolute Advantage.Part III: Economic Theory and Policy:.6. The Crown Jewel of Economics: The Price Mechanism.6.1 An Overview of the Price Mechanism.6.2 Equilibrium.6.3 Shortages.6.4 A Digression: The Equilibrium of the Firm.6.5 What Happens in the Absence of a Price Mechanism?.6.6 The Dark Side of the Price Mechanism.6.7 The Upshot.Appendix 6.1: More on Supply and Demand.7. Risk Taking and Incentives.7.1 Risk Bearing and Entrepreneurship.7.2 Incentives.8. Looking around Corners.