Like no other text for the intermediate microeconomics course, Goolsbee, Levitt, and Syverson’s Microeconomics bridges the gap between the theory and practice, providing an empirical dimension that makes the course immediately relevant and useful to students. With carefully crafted features and examples that offer unusual perspectives on the seemingly ordinary, Goolsbee, Levitt, and Syverson’s breakthrough text helps instructors move students from understanding basic economic principles to applying the powerful tools of economic analysis.
Steven David Levitt is an American economist and co-author of the best-selling book Freakonomics and its sequels (along with Stephen J. Dubner). Levitt was the winner of the 2003 John Bates Clark Medal for his work in the field of crime, and is currently the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago as well as the Faculty Director and Co-Founder of the Center for Radical Innovation for Social Change at the University of Chicago which incubates the Data Science for Everyone coalition. He was co-editor of the Journal of Political Economy published by the University of Chicago Press until December 2007. In 2009, Levitt co-founded TGG Group, a business and philanthropy consulting company. He was chosen as one of Time magazine's "100 People Who Shape Our World" in 2006. A 2011 survey of economics professors named Levitt their fourth favorite living economist under the age of 60, after Paul Krugman, N. Gregory Mankiw and Daron Acemoğlu.
For a textbook remarkably readable and accessible, enlivened by real world examples
I enjoyed learning about microeconomics through the book. Some of the concepts are quite esoteric but overall the authors provide ample narrative around the content and I found it engaging, even when I never had much microeconomics in my education before.
I was assigned this textbook for a class on intermediate microeconomics but subsituted it for better material halfway through. Ultimately, it simply lacks the theoretical depth and 'sophistication' to be of much use for studying the subject on a level that is higher than introductory. Instead, long-winded verbal explanations and real world illustrations dominate this book. Unless you are studying microeconomics just for fun or are uncomfortable with calculus, do yourself a favour and get Varian's 'Intermediate Microeconomics' or Nicholson & Snyder's 'Microeconomic Theory', regardless of what your professor says. They are much more comprehensive and to the point.
It was solid, though not as immediately accessible to someone without a subject background like myself. The real-world application sections were the most interesting to me in comparison to the theory. I've since learned that there's a lot of 'neoclassical' economic theories and 'behavioral economics' theories and they aren't always in agreement - econ drama, I guess. Don't mind my bias on the subject, it's been my least favorite so far!
"One cannot help but be struck by the thought that if the rest of the world knew as much about economics as you now do after completing Microeconomics, we would all be a lot better off."