Microeconomics » (2nd Edition)

The same unique voice that made Paul Krugman a widely read economist is evident on every page of Microeconomics. The product of the partnership of coauthors Krugman and Robin Wells, the book returns in a new edition.

The new edition is informed and informative, solidly grounded in economic fundamentals yet focused on the realities of today’s world and the lives of students. It maintains the signature Krugman/Wells story-driven approach while incorporating organizational changes, new content and features, and new media and supplements.

Watch a video interview of Paul Krugman here.

Introduction The Ordinary Business of Life

Any Given Sunday

The Invisible Hand

My Benefit, Your Cost

Good Times, Bad Times

Onward and Upward

An Engine for Discovery

Chapter 1 First Principles

Common Ground

Individual Choice: The Core of Economics

For Inquiring Minds: Got a Penny?

For Inquiring Minds: Pay for Grades?

Economics in Action: A Woman’s Work

Interaction: How Economies Work

For Inquiring Minds: Choosing Sides

Economics in Action: Restoring Equilibrium on the Freeways

Economy-Wide Interactions

Economics in Action: Adventures in Babysitting

Chapter 2 Economic Models: Trade-offs and Trade

Tunnel Vision

Models in Economics: Some Important Examples

For Inquiring Minds: Models for Money

Pitfalls: Misunderstanding Comparative Advantage

Global Comparison: Pajama Republics

Economics in Action: Rich Nation, Poor Nation

Using Models

For Inquiring Minds: When Economists Agree

Economics in Action: Economists in Government

Chapter 2 Appendix: Graphs in Economics

Getting the Picture

Graphs, Variables, and Economic Models

How Graphs Work

A Key Concept: The Slope of a Curve

Calculating the Area Below or Above a Curve

Graphs That Depict Numerical Information

Chapter 3 Supply and Demand

Wake Up and Don’t Smell the Coffee

Supply and Demand: A Model of a Competitive Market

The Demand Curve

Global Comparison: Pay More, Pump Less

Pitfalls: Demand versus Quantity Demanded

Economics in Action: Beating the Traffic

The Supply Curve

Economics in Action: Only Creatures Small and Pampered

Supply, Demand, and Equilibrium

Pitfalls: Bought and Sold?

Economics in Action: The Price of Admission

Changes in Supply and Demand

Pitfalls: Which Curve Is It, Anyway?

For Inquiring Minds: Tribulations on the Runway

Economics in Action: The Great Tortilla Crisis

Competitive Markets—And Others

Chapter 4 Consumer and Producer Surplus

Making Gains by the Book

Consumer Surplus and the Demand Curve

For Inquiring Minds: A Matter of Life and Death

Economics in Action: When Money Isn’t Enough

Producer Surplus and the Supply Curve

Economics in Action: When the Corn Is High

Consumer Surplus, Producer Surplus, and the Gains from Trade

Economics in Action: eBay and Efficiency

A Market Economy

Economics in Action: A Great Leap—Backward

Chapter 5 The Market Strikes Back

Big City, Not-So-Bright Ideas

Why Governments Control Prices

Price Ceilings

For Inquiring Minds: Winners, Losers, and Rent Control

For Inquiring Minds: Rent Control, Mumbai Style

Economics in Action: Hard Shopping in Caracas

Price Floors

For Inquiring Minds: Price Floors and School Lunches

Pitfalls: Ceilings, Floors, and Quantities

Global Comparison: Check Out Our Low, Low Wages!

Economics in Action: "Black Labor" in Southern Europe

Controlling Quantities

Economics in Action: The Clams of New Jersey

Chapter 6 Elasticity

More Precious Than a Flu Shot

Defining and Measuring Elasticity

Economics in Action: Estimating Elasticities

Interpreting the Price Elasticity of Demand

Economics in Action: Responding to Your Tuition Bill

Other Demand Elasticities

For Inquiring Minds: Where Have All the Farmers Gone?

Global Comparison: Food’s Bite In World Budgets

Economics in Action: Spending It

The Price Elasticity of Supply

Economics in Action: European Farm Surpluses An Elasticity Menagerie

Chapter 7 Taxes

A Tax Riot

The Economics of Taxes: A Preliminary View

Economics in Action: Who Pays the FICA?

The Benefits and Costs of Taxation

For Inquiring Minds: The Laffer Curve

Economics in Action: Taxing the Marlboro Man

Tax Fairness and Tax Efficiency

For Inquiring Minds: Killing the Lawyers

Economics in Action: Federal Tax Philosophy

Understanding the Tax System

Global Comparison: You Think You Pay High Taxes?

For Inquiring Minds: Taxing Income versus Taxing Consumption

Economics in Action: The Top Marginal Income Tax Rate

Chapter 8 International Trade

A Seafood Fight

Comparative Advantage and International Trade

Global Comparison: Productivity And Wages Around The World

For Inquiring Minds: Increasing Returns and International Trade

Economics in Action: Skill and Comparative Advantage

Supply, Demand, and International Trade

Economics in Action: Trade, Wages, and Land Prices in the Nineteenth Century The Effects of Trade Protection

Economics in Action: Trade Protection in the United States

The Political Economy of Trade Protection

For Inquiring Minds: Chinese Pants Explosion

Economics in Action: The Doha Deadlock

Chapter 9 Making Decisions

A Tale of Two Invasions

Opportunity Cost and Decisions

For Inquiring Minds: Famous College Dropouts

Economics in Action: Farming in the Shadow of Suburbia

Making "How Much" Decisions: The Role of Marginal Analysis

Pitfalls: Total Cost versus Marginal Cost

Global Comparison: Portion Sizes

Pitfalls: Muddled at the Margin

Economics in Action: The Cost of a Life

Sunk Costs

Economics in Action: A Billion Here, a Billion There . . .

The Concept of Present Value

Economics in Action: How Big Is That Jackpot, Anyway?

Chapter 10 The Rational Consumer

A Clam Too Far

Utility: Getting Satisfaction

For Inquiring Minds: Is Marginal Utility Really Diminishing?

Economics in Action: Oysters versus Chicken

Budgets and Optimal Consumption

For Inquiring Minds: Food for Thought on Budget Constraints

Economics in Action: The Consumption Possibilities of American Workers, 1895–2000

Spending the Marginal Dollar

Pitfalls: The Right Marginal Comparison

For Inquiring Minds: But Are Consumers Really Rational?

Economics in Action: Buying Your Way Out of Temptation

From Utility to the Demand Curve

For Inquiring Minds: Giffin Goods

Economics in Action: Mortgage Rates and Consumer Demand

Chapter 11 Consumer Preferences and Consumer Choice

A Tale of Two Cities

Mapping the Utility Function

For Inquiring Minds: Are Utils Useful?

Indifference Curves and Consumer Choice

Economics in Action: Rats and Rational Choice

Using Indifference Curves: Substitutes and Complements

Economics in Action: Publicity or Piracy?

Prices, Income, and Demand

Pitfalls: “Other Things Equal,” Revisited

Economics in Action: How Much Housing?

Chapter 12 Behind the Supply Curve: Inputs and Costs

The Farmer’s Margin

The Production Function

Global Comparison: Wheat Yields Around The World

Pitfalls: What’s a Unit?

For Inquiring Minds: Was Malthus Right?

Economics in Action: The Mythical Man-Month

Two Key Concepts: Marginal Cost and Average Cost

Economics in Action: Don’t Put Out the Welcome Mat

Short-Run versus Long-Run Costs

Economics in Action: There’s No Business Like Snow Business

Chapter 13 Perfect Competition and the Supply Curve

Doing What Comes Naturally

Perfect Competition

For Inquiring Minds: What’s a Standardized Product?

Economics in Action: The Pain of Competition

Production and Profits

Pitfalls: What If Marginal Revenue and Marginal Cost Aren’t Exactly Equal?

Pitfalls: Economic Profit, Again

Economics in Action: Prices Are Up . . . but So Are Costs

The Industry Supply Curve

Economics in Action: A Crushing Reversal

Chapter 14 Monopoly

Everybody Must Get Stones

Types of Market Structure

The Meaning of Monopoly

Global Comparison: The Price We Pay

Economics in Action: Low Supply and Soaring Demand: A Diamond Producer’s Best Friend

How a Monopolist Maximizes Profit

Pitfalls: Finding the Monopoly Price

Pitfalls: Is There a Monopoly Supply Curve?

For Inquiring Minds: Monopoly Behavior and the Price Elasticity of Demand

Economics in Action: California Power Play

Monopoly and Public Policy

Economics in Action: Cable Dilemmas

Price Discrimination

Economics in Action: Sales, Factory Outlets, and Ghost Cities

Chapter 15 Oligopoly

Caught in the Act

The Prevalence of Oligopoly

Economics in Action: Is it an Oligopoly or Not?

Understanding Oligopoly

Global Comparison: Europe Levels The Playing Field for Coke and Pepsi

Economics in Action: The Great Vitamin Conspiracy

Games Oligopolists Play

Pitfalls: Playing Fair in the Prisoners’ Dilemma

For Inquiring Minds: Prisoners of the Arms Race

Economics in Action: The Rise and Fall and Rise of OPEC

Oligopoly in Practice

For Inquiring Minds: The Art of Conspiracy

Economics in Action: The Price Wars of Christmas

How Important Is Oligopoly?

Chapter 16 Monopolistic Competition and Product Differentiation

Fast-Food Differentiation

The Meaning of Monopolistic Competition

Product Differentiation

For Inquiring Minds: Can’t Buy Love

Economics in Action: Any Color, So Long as It’s Black

Understanding Monopolistic Competition

For Inquiring Minds: Hits and Flops

Economics in Action: The Last Stand of the 6-Percenters?

Monopolistic Competition versus Perfect Competition

Controversies about Product Differentiation

Economics in Action: Absolut Irrationality

Chapter 17 Externalities

Who’ll Stop the Rain?

The Economics of Pollution

Pitfalls: So How Do You Measure the Marginal Social Cost of Pollution?

Pitfalls: So How Do You Measure the Marginal Social Benefit of Pollution?

For Inquiring Minds: Talking and Driving

Economics in Action: Thank You for Not Smoking

Policies Toward Pollution

Global Comparison: Economic Growth and Greenhouse Gases in Five Countries

Economics in Action: Cap and Trade

Production, Consumption, and Externalities

Economics in Action: The Impeccable Economic Logic of Early Childhood

Intervention Programs

Network Externalities

Economics in Action: The Microsoft Case

Chapter 18 Public Goods and Common Resources

The Great Stink

Private Goods—and Others

Pitfalls: Marginal Cost Of What Exactly?

Economics in Action: A Policeman’s Lot

Public Goods

Global Comparison: Voting as a Public Good: The Global Perspective

For Inquiring Minds: Voting as a Public Good Here at Home

Economics in Action: Old Man River

Common Resources

For Inquiring Minds: A Water Fight in Maine

Economics in Action: A Tale of Two Fisheries

Artificially Scarce Goods

Economics in Action: Blacked-Out Games

Chapter 19 The Economics of the Welfare State

Insuring Children’s Health

Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy

For Inquiring Minds: Justice and the Welfare State

Global Comparison: Poor People In Rich Countries

Economics in Action: Long-Term Trends in Income Inequality

The U.S. Welfare State

Economics in Action: Britain’s War on Poverty

The Economics of Health Care

For Inquiring Minds: California Death Spiral

Economics in Action: The Trouble with Medical Progress

The Debate Over the Welfare State

Economics in Action: French Family Values

Chapter 20 Factor Markets and the Distribution of Income

The Value of a Degree

The Economy’s Factors of Production

Pitfalls: What Is a Factor, Anyway?

For Inquiring Minds: The Factor Distribution of Income and Social Change in the Industrial Revolution

Economics in Action: The Factor Distribution of Income in the United States

Marginal Productivity and Factor Demand

Pitfalls: Getting Marginal Productivity Right

Economics in Action: Help Wanted!

Is the Marginal Productivity Theory of Income Distribution Really True?

Economics in Action: The Economics of Apartheid

The Supply of Labor

For Inquiring Minds: Why You Can’t Find a Cab When It’s Raining

Global Comparison: The Overworked American?

Economics in Action: The Decline of the Summer Job

20 Appendix: Indifference Curve Analysis of Labor Supply

The Time Allocation Budget Line

The Effect of a Higher Wage Rate

Indifference Curve Analysis

Chapter 21 Uncertainty, Risk, and Private Information

The Year of the Hurricane

The Economics of Risk AversionFor Inquiring Minds: The Paradox of Gambling

Pitfalls: Before the Fact versus After the Fact

Economics in Action: Warranties

Buying, Selling, and Reducing Risk

For Inquiring Minds: Those Pesky Emotions

Economics in Action: When Lloyd’s Almost Llost It

Private Information: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

Economics in Action: Franchise Owners Try Harder