The cartoon introduction to economics

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Title:

The cartoon introduction to economics

Author:

Klein, Grady.

ISBN:

9780809094813

9780809033614

Personal Author:

Klein, Grady.

Publication Information:

Edition:

1st ed.

Physical Description:

2 volumes : chiefly illustrations ; 26 cm

Abstract:

Award-winning illustrator Klein has paired up with the economist Bauman to create a clear and humorous introduction to microeconomics. Topics such as supply and demand, decision trees, taxes, auctions, risk investment, game theory, Pareto efficiency, Pareto improvement, marginal analysis, and price elasticity are presented.

Contents:

v. 1. Microeconomics. pt. 1. The optimizing individual. Introduction -- Decision trees -- Time -- Risk -- From one to some -- pt. 2. Strategic interactions. Cake cutting -- Pareto efficiency -- Simultaneous-move games -- Auctions -- From some to many -- pt. 3. Market interactions. Supply and demand -- Taxes -- Margins -- Elasticity -- The big picture -- Conclusion.

v. 2. Macroeconomics. pt. 1. A single macroeconomy. Introduction -- Unemployment -- Money -- Inflation -- Gross domestic product (GDP) -- The role of government -- pt. 2. International trade. Trade and technology -- The classical view of trade -- Complications -- Foreign aid -- Foreign currencies -- pt. 3. Global macroeconomics. The end of the business cycle? -- The end of poverty? -- The end of Planet Earth? -- The end of youth? -- The end.

Subject Term:

Microeconomics.

Macroeconomics.

Wirtschaftstheorie. (DE-588)4079351-5

Macroeconomics. (OCoLC)fst01005221

Microeconomics. (OCoLC)fst01019730

Added Author:

Bauman, Yoram.

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
Searching... Sugar Grove - Todd Library	Book	HB172 .K67 2010	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

The award-winning illustrator Grady Klein has paired up with the world's only stand-up economist, Yoram Bauman, PhD, to take the dismal out of the dismal science. From the optimizing individual to game theory to price theory, The Cartoon Introduction to Economics is the most digestible, explicable, and humorous 200-page introduction to microeconomics you'll ever read.

Bauman has put the "comedy" into "economy" at comedy clubs and universities around the country and around the world (his "Principles of Economics, Translated" is a YouTube cult classic). As an educator at both the university and high school levels, he has learned how to make economics relevant to today's world and today's students. As Google's chief economist, Hal Varian, wrote, "You don't need a brand-new economics. You just need to see the really cool stuff, the material they didn't get to when you studied economics." The Cartoon Introduction to Economics is all about integrating the really cool stuff into an overview of the entire discipline of microeconomics, from decision trees to game trees to taxes and thinking at the margin.

Rendering the cool stuff fun is the artistry of the illustrator and lauded graphic novelist Klein. Panel by panel, page by page, he puts comics into economics. So if the vertiginous economy or a dour professor's 600-page econ textbook has you desperate for a fun, factual guide to economics, reach for The Cartoon Introduction to Economics and let the collaborative genius of the Klein-Bauman team walk you through an entire introductory microeconomics course.

Reviews (2)

Publisher's Weekly Review

As a study aide, if you can get past-or roll with-the often-precious humor presented by humorist/Ph.D. Bauman, this book is well organized and direct, using its overviews to deflate some of the pomposity that surrounds economic theory. While pro-free trade, the book regards the theories it presents with a slight grain of salt, giving the reader an even broader view of economic history, with the trends that worked short- and long-term. Often, though, this is almost as tedious as an economics textbook-only those who are assigned a class in microeconomics might find some enjoyment in this book, a potential respite from their dry assignments. Also on the negative side, the drawings seem to be flat blobs. For those required to study the subject or already familiar with it, this has some value as a colorful brush up, but the merely curious may struggle. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

Barging in on Larry Gonick's seeming monopoly, Klein and Bauman serve up a similar blend of humor and solid instruction on a topic everyone's supposed to know something about (besides history, Gonick's covered chemistry, computers, physics, the environment, statistics, genetics, and sex). Klein's zippy drawing looks like Gonick's, especially in its scribbly treatment of the figures' hair, though his preferences for relatively thick lines and bare-bones perspective (one item in front of another against distant or no backdrop) also conjure the work of the marvelous New Yorker cartoonist Lou Myers (1915-2005). Within three parts on The Optimizing Individual, Strategic Interactions, and Market Interactions, and explaining such bedrock economic concepts as risk, Pareto efficiency, game theory, auctions, supply and demand, and margins, Bauman's text, delivered by three figures whose lab coats and experimenter's clipboards suggest they're not just economists but scientists (and constitute a red flag to those who think social science is an oxymoron), bears out his self-characterization, the world's first and only stand-up economist. Probably the least dismal treatment of the dismal science ever.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2010 Booklist