Microeconomics in Context

Neva Goodwin is Co-Director of the Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts University, where she is the director of the electronic Social Science Library: Frontier Thinking in Sustainable Development and Human Well-Being. Her current interests focus on ecological restoration, especially with regard to soils. Jonathan M. Harris is Senior Research Associate at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University. His current research focuses on the implications of large-scale environmental problems, especially global climate change, for macroeconomic theory and policy. Julie A. Nelson is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Senior Research Fellow at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University. Many of her books and articles critique economic methodology from a feminist perspective. She has published in journals ranging from Econometrica and the Journal of Political Economy to Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy and Ecological Economics. Pratistha Joshi Rajkarnikar is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University. Her research covers a broad range of topics on women’s empowerment, economic development, and the impacts of globalization on developing economies. She has taught economics in visiting positions at Trinity College and University of Massachusetts Boston. Brian Roach is Director of the Theory and Education Program at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University, and a lecturer at Tufts and Brandeis Universities. He specializes in environmental economics, and is co-author (with Jonathan Harris) of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: A Contemporary Approach. Mariano Torras teaches economics at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York. A heterodox economist who specializes in ecological and development economics, his recent research has been in the areas of institutional economics and economic methodology; particular attention has been on approaches to addressing climate change.

Part I: The Context for Economic Analysis

0. Microeconomics and Well-being

1. Economic Activity in Context

2. Markets and Society

Part II: Basic Economic Analysis

3. Supply and Demand

4. Elasticity

5. Welfare Analysis

6. International Trade and Trade Policy

Part III: Economics and Society

7. Economic Behavior and Rationality

8. Consumption and the Consumer Society

9. Markets for Labor

Part IV: Essential Topics for Contemporary Economics

10. Economic and Social Inequality

11. Taxes and Tax Policy

12. The Economics of the Environment

13. Common Property Resources and Public Goods

Part V: Resources, Production and Market Organization

14. Capital Stocks

15. Production Costs

16. Perfectly Competitive Markets

17. Markets with Market Power