(Part 2) Best microeconomics books according to redditors
We found 406 Reddit comments discussing the best microeconomics books. We ranked the 132 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
er... I guess I dual majored in Math and Economics while in College. I want to be an actuary by profession but my parents are making me do medical school. I also went to a prestigious university. So i guess the lack of summer internships isn't that bad.
Sometimes I spend time shutting down pop-economic circlejerks who believe they got everything figured out after learning about keynes in some blog.
I'm Sorry that you reacted so strongly about my previous post, but i really dislike having my background paraded on the internet. In my original post I linked you a book on transfer pricing, I think this book might be a better match.
condescending answer
more serious answer: Economists overwhelmingly agree rent control hurts housing supply, 'cause price controls.
I think automation will lead to radical abundance, openness, and decentralization (checkout /r/Rad_decentralization). Quite the opposite of a socialist state controlling production, but also a greatly reduced role of capital. Libertarian Socialism probably.
Chris Andersen's books convinced me of this, [Makers: The New Industrial Revolution] (http://www.amazon.com/Makers-The-New-Industrial-Revolution-ebook/dp/B0083DJUMA) and [Free: The Future of a Radical Price] (http://www.amazon.com/Free-Future-Radical-Chris-Anderson-ebook/dp/B002DYJR4G). We're going to see the sort of market forces that upended the news and music industries when they went digital soon applied to physical goods. As Anderson says, atoms may soon become basically free like bits.
As more and more product designs become digitized in a way where 3D printers and similar technologies can manufacture them, openness becomes almost inevitable because it's nearly impossible to stop piracy (like with music). Near complete automation, combined with open designs, drives costs towards zero.
Anderson talks about how information becoming free on the Internet made a lot of classic economics wrong. Reputation instead of capital largely became valuable as the cost of serving a single customer was too small to care about charging for. Ads turn reputation into capital, but reputation is what really matters. The open source world largely operates off reputation too, and we may compete more for the dopamine kick of up-votes than dollars in the future.
Affordable 3D printing and related technologies are handing the means of production over to the people. The need for centralized capital-heavy or state controlled manufacturing is disappearing.
I'm a big proponent of a Basic Income to get us there. Whether it'd be a fair system in the long run, I'm not sure.
My two favorite books which introduce economic thinking are Armchair Economist and The Undercover Economist. They're quick reads, they're jargon free, and actually teach some of the thinking. Unlike the pop-econ books (Freakonomics and its ilk), which are simply about strange results from research (some of Landsburg's later books suffer from this problem). For an introduction to behavioral economics, you can't do better than Predictably Irrational.
For substance, textbooks are probably best unless you have a carefully chosen list of academic articles. Wooldridge for Econometrics, Mankiw for introductory macro, and Nicholson for introductory micro (Krugman's micro book is fine too). Mankiw writes my favorite econ textbooks. For game theory, I used an older version of Watson's textbook, and it was fine, but I don't know how other game theory books stack up.
If textbooks are a bit much, but you still want a substantive book, the first chapter of Thomas Sowell's introduction is very good, the rest is decent repetition. If you want a some discussion of discredited economic theories that are still trotted out regularly (like trickle down), Zombie Economics is a really fun read.
As an Economics PhD student, I agree with most of what you've written, but I'm not sure I would characterize the texts you recommend as introductory. Unfortunately, until the graduate level, most economics texts are lacking in formalism, largely because the undergraduates they are aimed at tend to lack background in mathematics. The texts written at the graduate level have the formalism, but presuppose a degree of familiarity with concepts and jargon.
The Mas-Collel is indeed the standard for formal micro, and I would direct the OP to Hirshleifer for a companion that fills in the background and intuitions that might be lacking in that text.
Macro is definitely less accessible, at least to me, but for a recommendation, I think basically everyone uses Romer as the first heavy-duty macro text right now. I can certainly share the sort of Socratic feeling towards macroeconomics, though, the more I learn about it the less I feel confident in saying about the world beyond the models.
Specifically, my focus is in applied econometrics, and I recommend Kennedy to everyone who expresses any interest in the topic. Kennedy employs an approach that I particularly enjoy, where he divides each section into thirds: one for an intuitive explanation, one for an overview of the math, and one for in depth consideration of the method and citations.
EDIT: I was looking over your comments about peppajac217's recommendation, and I scrolled down to examine them. I would second your advice about avoiding those texts, as they are Austrian pop-econ, and involve no formalism at all, making them particularly ill-suited to this request.
Edit: I know that back when I was a grad student the previous edition was available online for free and the section on Obamacare wasn’t much different. I hope you can learn something.
Principles of Economics In Context
Literally a textbook on economics. Includes both macro- and micro- economics. But, and the reason I have this textbook as someone that wants to study economics, this textbook contrasts different economic models. It has the neoclassical model, of course, since it's supposed to be able to teach the reader the same stuff they'd learn in ECON 101. But it also has the contextual model, which includes taking account of the environment and society.
Also, for clarification, you're looking for books on macroeconomics.
"Masters Level" Economic Textbooks.
---
I've picked these texts as they are ones that I ran across in the year I spent as a masters student, or in advanced economics classes when I was an undergraduate/undergraduate tutor.
Hal Varian, Microeconomic Analysis Relatively outdated graduate level textbook in microeconomic theory. I'd imagine his intermediate book would prepare you well for this text. It requires understanding of partial derivatives and some matrix notation to get through, but compared to today's texts comes off comparably light. I'd imagine it'd old and used enough that there exists comprehensive answer guides online that you can track down.
David Romer, Advanced Macroeconomics Romer's Advanced Macroeconomics is used in some undergraduate programs, and some masters/graduate programs. Again, compared to standard texts, it is wanting, but does a good job of covering many of the introductory models that are used in modern economic analysis. This text requires knowledge of at least single variable integration (might require multiple in the later chapters, but when I was tutoring students with it classes never got that far), and the usual multivariate calculus.
Jeffrey Wooldridge, Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach this was the textbook that I first saw econometrics through, and I still think its a fantastic applied text. It has a decent mathematical appendix covering some probability and math topics required for the text. On the flip side, the text gives you some pretty good how-to methods to implement a lot of the common econometric techniques and some intuition behind why they are used.
Simon & Blume, Mathematics for Economists This text is usually used in graduate programs math camps as a book saying "you should feel comfortable using these techniques before entering the program." Covers a wide range of topics from calculus, optimization, and linear algebra, to differential equations and some topics in real analysis. It has a fair amount of exercises to work through, and again, the book has been used enough that answer guides may be available online.
As you've probably heard, graduate school is very mathematical, and very little that I learned in intermediate micro ends up bridging the gap outside of some of the intuition I gathered through it. Most of the books I cited above are a solid jump up in difficulty from most intermediate books I've seen, and still a solid jump away from the common PhD level texts (Mas-Colell, Whinston, and Green "Microeconomic Theory". Sargent and Ljungqvist "Recursive Macroeconomic Theory". Greene "Econometric Analysis", respectively).
As a result, depending on what you plan on doing in the near to short term, its usually better to take more calculus, linear algebra, and other mid level mathematics classes.
You're very welcome. Feel free to ask if you have any questions. These would be a good start
Varian on Micro
Dixit on Optimization
Dixit on Game Theory
Romer on Macro e.g. Solow, ISLM, MF, RCK, etc
Schaum's Outline to Math
Mises on Human Action
Alchian on Micro
Hirshleifers on Price Theory
Learner on Macro
Intermediate econ if you're up for it:
http://www.amazon.com/Macroeconomics-N-Gregory-Mankiw/dp/1464182892
http://www.amazon.com/Macroeconomics-Policy-Practice-Pearson-Economics/dp/0321436334
http://www.amazon.com/Intermediate-Microeconomics-Modern-Approach-Ninth/dp/0393123960
http://www.amazon.com/Money-Banking-Financial-System-2nd/dp/0132994917
EDIT: For intro econ, you can just get started with the books by Krugman and Wells. I'm sure we all love Krugman here yea?
As far as history goes, just FYI, Zinn's People's History has a very poor reputation among (even left leaning) academic historians. You can ask about it at /r/askhistorians if you want to know more. You can also check their excellent book list, organized by region and topic.
EDIT: For an overview of US history, The Oxford History of the US series is an excellent primer.
I know less about sociology, but I think a good intro would be Khan's Privilege in that it touches on a contemporary sociological issue in a lay friendly manner but also goes into some theoretical foundations in the tradition of Bourdieu.
Whichever ones your econ program is using. Orthodox economics is pretty consistent at the lower levels no matter what textbook you use. My program used one of krugmans books(I think this was it), Mankiw is pretty standard for macro.
Yeah, I remember now. It was Chris Anderson. I remember the article in Wired. It was called "Free" based on his book
I assume you went through this?
In that case, you could just jump to the next Varian book which, if I remember correctly, is more advanced.
I reckon it beats going full MWG. Though, if you want to do that, be my guest.
https://www.amazon.ca/Confessions-Microfinance-Heretic-Microlending-Betrayed/dp/1609945182
Also very good
it doesn't necessarily fit the "cheap" criterion, but I was quite satisfied with Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach, Seventh Edition by Hal R. Varian
Any introductory textbook will cover this stuff. The gold standard is Mankiw's Principles (micro & macro), though I've recently been using Mateer and Coppock (micro & macro).
Your library might have copies, and old editions of Mankiw can be found online for less than $10.
I should admit that I am biased with several friends at athenahealth, including Bush... and they fund some of my Open Data work.... With that out of the way..
The killer thing about athenahealth is their overall model. They do not charge a flat fee for their services, but instead take percentage of their clients billing. That change incentives has a cascade of really cool effects, the first of which is the most obvious. They have a huge incentive to get your billing improved, and their fees are frequently offset by how much they improve your billing.
They do this by applying Cloud scaling and Big Data techniques and they have been done that way before Health IT has any idea what either of those things were. They are a clearinghouse too, which the reason that they can get the network effect coming from all of their clients billing data.
More importantly, they consistently take solid ethical stands on health IT... like breaking up with EHRA and pledging not to trap client data with a code of conduct. they, along with Allscripts, have bet heavily on a mature API play for third parties. Allscripts and athenahealth are not the only people with "an app store" for clients, but they are probably the only ones to have useful stuff in the app stores... athenahealth are leaders in Meaningful Use 2 adoption, and they publish their internal metrics on how their clients do with Meaningful Use scores. I don't know of another vendor who does that.
All of that is distinct from normal Health IT industry bullshit.
I know people at just about every vendor and I can tell you that the whole industry is fully of top-notch people... true believers... but athenahealth really takes risks as an organization that I respect. I suspect this is a top-down thing, with Jonathan Bush and his C-level suite consistently creating an environment where doing the right thing because its the right thing is corporate culture. Jonathan wrote a book that is worth reading. Jonathan is a genius and he knows it clearly an arrogant dude. (Of course me saying that is clearly... clearly.. the pot calling the kettle black). I like to think of him as the "internally consistent Bush".
Not everything is rosy with athenahealth. I am generally uncomfortable endorsing proprietary EHR companies, but efforts like OpenEMR remain scattered and inconsistent in quality (just look at the OpenEMR logo... it tells you everything you need to know). This is a catch-22, Open Source EHRs need adoption to get good and they don't get adoption because they are not as good. While athenahealth has a very strong billing offering, and their clinical components were bolted on after. While billing chops make them popular, I worry that this hampers their capacity to be a great clinical system. This is a problem for the whole industry, as CPT drags the quality of the clinical data into the toilet, but it is implicitly a bigger problem for athenahealth. They are outpatient focused, and are not a player in the hospital space. They are not always as awesome if you have to do organizational billing. Of course "not awesome" is basically industry standard in health IT. This is why the idea that they are buying IP in the hospital space is so interesting. They are clearly trying to shore-up where they are weak.
As far as you "have a locally installed EMR that is working fine, we just need training." This is an oxymoron. If you need training it isn't working fine and if its working fine you don't need training. There is a fundamental disconnect between your view of the world and your "C-levels" view. Frankly, I suspect that both of the views in question are substantially unrealistic. (Nothing personal.. its an industry-wide disease). While I can certainly endorse athenahealth as a vendor, it sounds like your organization is only half-committed to an EHR strategy in general. Even worse (continuing to presume that you are typical healthcare organization) I seriously doubt that you have an institutional understanding of what "fully committed" looks like (although you personally might). No matter what your organization decides in the end, this strategy will fail in the long term. One of the reasons that Epic is so successful is that they do not even begin to put up with bullshit like this from clients. You cannot even buy Epic without getting properly trained. No one ever, ever, ever is in a position to choose whether they are fully committed to Epic, which is why they have the track record, which is why they dominate in large hospital installs.
I accidentally wrote this when I should have been coding, and once I start ranting I just cannot stop.. but this post has some fairly good shit in it, so I will probably blog it later. Since it is one of my better rants, I don't mind "signing" it for a little extra weight.
Fred Trotter Author of Hacking Healthcare
(Edits: added more ranting for clarity and because I am still learning the reddit formatting)
That's rough. None of the graduate classes I took had textbooks, so I won't be able to tell you if it bores you with math or not. But there's mascollel winston greene (http://www.amazon.com/Microeconomic-Theory-Andreu-Mas-Colell/dp/0195073401) which is the classic one all the schools use and graduate varian (http://www.amazon.com/Microeconomic-Analysis-Third-Edition-Varian/dp/0393957357/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_4)
>Please demonstrate that competition can be universally assumed to always reduce prices and improve customer service.
Here, this should be helpful for you.
Yes they are, your ignorance toward economics is showing. Here's a [basic econ textbook](https://www.amazon.com/Microeconomics-Paul-Krugman/dp/1429283424/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1500324824&sr=8-3&keywords=microeconomics+textbook
) you should read it before you make dumb comments.
Yeah, I understand those concepts thoroughly, but this ideological vision of the correctly working ultimate capitalist market doesn't even generate a result any society would actually want. Perfect competition depends on completely flowing perfect information between consumers and producers, which simply doesn't exist. Furthermore, it depends on producers having zero interest in differentiating their product, and the idea that there will be no barriers for entry or exit into or from the markets themselves. Take a look at Hill and Myatt's economics anti-textbook for a good explanation of how the iconic capitalist market fails to deliver for either its populace or the firms involved.
Also, neither author described a socialist government, nor even ventured to critique socialist governments, they wished to critique authoritarian or fascist regimes which boiled up out of modern governmental structures, capitalist or non. The point is though, that in the systems they described, methods of social control involved blanket security for the lower class, while the method of social control in our system simply involved unmitigated authority and wealth accumulation. It's unsustainable, even for those who are attempting to run this system.
Check out the description for this book: (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Economics-Anti-Textbook-Critical-Thinkers-Microeconomics/dp/1842779397)...sounds like it might be what you're looking for. Myatt's co-authored on the Canadian versions of some of Paul Krugman's introductory textbooks.
[mruniversity.com](http://me university.com) is a great online resource. It features 16 full courses (short videos to explain the concepts + practice questions/examples + exams) including Principles of Microeconomics, Principles of Macroeconomics, Everyday Economics, and other great courses taught by Econ professors from George Mason University.
Fair label: The economists at GMU generally favor Austrian Economics - which heavily focuses on free market solutions.
These courses don't seem biased to me, and the basic microeconomic concepts (the science of economics) are pretty universal. Everything in the world can be seen to have some kind of spin, though, so take everything with a grain of salt.
Edit: This textbook helped me understand a lot but I would definitely at least go through the Principles of Micro course on mruniversity before trying to tackle this book. The book does a great job of connecting the principles to actual real world examples.
Edit 2: Grammar in the first edit
I'd reccomend reading an economics textbook this one got me started. (You can probably find it cheaper used somewhere).
Edit: fixed link
They are the same text. One is bound, the other is loose-leaf for insertion into a three-ring binder.
You might try contacting the instructor to see whether the MyEconLab is actually required. If it is not, the textbook alone can be found on Amazon for rent for as little as $85.00.
Oh, I know!
I like a lot of what's already been recommended, but you should check out Yoram Bauman's Cartoon Introduction to Economics
It's basically a coverage of your standard micro intro course, but funnier.
read the book by the founder of Athena health.
https://www.amazon.com/Where-Does-Hurt-Entrepreneurs-Fixing/dp/1591846773
I'd recommend Varian for Micro, https://www.amazon.com/Microeconomic-Analysis-Third-Hal-Varian/dp/0393957357?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0, and either Wickens, https://www.amazon.com/Macroeconomic-Theory-Dynamic-Equilibrium-Approach/dp/0691152861?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0, or Romer, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0073511374/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687642&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0691152861&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=6BKPTEX4BHMM69GVSK4F, for macro. These texts are typically used in master's degree programs, but it is difficult to find really math intensive intermediate textbooks for undergrad (I once ran into someone that didn't even have to use calculus for his economics degree). Good luck in your studies!
> In the quantum world, two states are possible until we observe them.
No, not possible, are. The cat isn't potentially both alive and dead, it is both alive and dead. It's fundamentally the same approach taken by statisticians when answering questions with a distribution rather than a fixed number, but the physics example is more commonly understood. (If you don't have an educational background which covered statistics in depth, I suggest picking up a copy of The Flaw of Averages by Sam Savage.)
>Legal definitions change nothing about morality or ethics, do they?
You're right - which is why the unborn baby is a living person, despite jurisprudence to the contrary.
Read Samuelson's Economics
As a side note, It's embarrassing that there are just short of a hundred comments in here and not one person has recommended this yet.
These?
Micro & Macro
> I think that I'm perhaps too ignorant to phrase my question properly
Nah, it's a good question.
A better explanation for that number I gave you might be:
([the value of everything produced in the US in 2016] - [the total value paid to all US laborers in 2016, which includes, for weird reasons, people paying themselves "wages" - which is sometimes less than the amount that they actually make total, because some of their wealth actually comes from owning the tools they used, and, for reasons I can't explain to you, we can actually figure out an exact number for how much])/[the number of the people in the US in 2016]
> Yes, you're quite right. I need to learn some basic economics. Do you have any recommendations?
I mean... I'm most of the way through a bachelor's with a minor in economics.
So... short of literally going to a college and auditing a course...
> a little bit of searching and I'm having a hard time finding 'economics 101' type stuff written by a marxist or similar. Are you aware of such a thing existing, or am I doing something wrong?
I mean, richard wolff might have some decent stuff? I don't really follow him, so.
I would just go on r/economics and ask for textbook reccomendations for basic microeconomics and basic macroeconomics.
Marx more or less can't teach you anything too useful, because his knowledge is 200 years out of date - it's like trying to understand modern biology by reading the Origin of Species. But also less so, because Marx's stuff had some problems even when he was writing it. I don't get why he's worshipped so much... the analytical marxists (mostly active in the 70s and 80s) did a good job extracting from his work just about everything that could be extracted, though.
https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Economics-Context-Neva-Goodwin/dp/0765638827 <-- this comes recommended on r/anarchism, so... figure out how to pirate that
https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/8izmkm/any_good_books_or_resources_on_economics/?st=jh8gjlc2&amp;sh=304b3aaa <-- here's where it was recommended
Here is the mobile version of your link
No, lightning does not let you do fee-less microtransactions.
Some may think the fees in LN are so tiny they dont matter, but they are wrong.
Humans have a weird intrinsic psychological reaction when deciding to pay 0 cents or pay infinitesimally small sub-satoshis. This tiny nuance is incredibly important to understand if one wants to create a wildly successful businesses centered around the use of cryptos.
Here's a free audible book on this phenomena. I found it incredibly interesting, maybe you will too. Fun fact, Nick Szabo is briefly mentioned here
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0055PK366/ref=tmm_aud_title_0?
Edit: Notice I didn't talk about "user friendly" or "issues". These can be abstracted away by a competent developer, but you cannot abstract away fees.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/128516590X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1505045442&amp;sr=8-1&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&amp;keywords=principles+of+microeconomics&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=51yZHNvE1AL&amp;ref=plSrch
Maybe you are correct and there is a level of malice, yet they are the "game owners" & I have a huge level of baseline respect for any Owners (Artist, entrepreneur, business, family, game, etc).
At some point in all you own you have to decide what to give away (as a part of marketing) and what to charge for.
It's not malice to charge for part of what you have created ... that's called sustainability.
If you really want to dive into this topic in an indirect way, look up the book titled "Free" by Chris Anderson:
Audiobook version should be free on audible
Archive.org has a few version it links to
So this book, a good book, talks all about the reasons and methods of giving stuff away - making F2P ... yet I'll spoil a little for you, you can give too much away.
See Free does not allow employees to get a paycheck directly.
Free brings people to the game, makes it easy for them to get to know it ... then there must be systems in place so that the portion of people who desires to pay can.
I know how upsetting it is to hit the paywall.
This is just another paywall.
I also see how all the little decisions that they made add up to frustration because we who did not whale on MF, et all have at least a more difficult time, or loose out on some opportunities.
That is still not automatically malice ... that is a much higher standard of desire to harm you.
___
I'd like to change this up a little.
What would you choose to make money on in SW:GoH, given you have a sunk cost of creating ships & must at least minimum sorta maintain that, but really keep it going until you have built out the team enough to build it right .... and you are limited on staff to do anything?
... last thing ...
This post really summed it up, especially the more I have thought about it ... and really it's just incompetence for me: (NOTE: we are all incompetent at something, if not most things ... I know I am.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/SWGalaxyOfHeroes/comments/70e33f/territory_battles_the_grand_chore_mode/
If you want a explanation of the financial crisis, the first thing that comes to mind is by Alan Greenspan. It's an excellent, and generally non-technical summary of what we know about the crisis. If you'd like to learn a little about the kinds of macroeconomic models that influence policy makers, I'd get a used copy of an intro to macro textbook (linked book by Mankiw sells for $2 used) and skim through, pausing when you find something interesting. I've heard "The Inside Job" documentary on the crisis is excellent, though it definitely has a viewpoint.
Two disclaimers: 1- This is a difficult time to learn macroeconomics, as if there were general agreement on what happened, it probably would not have happened. As such, trying to read about the recent financial crisis almost by necessity means reading someone with a strong viewpoint, which is usually not the way to begin studying a field. 2- There are a lot of sub-areas in economics, and I am not the best person to ask about "macro" topics.
You need to read this: https://www.amazon.com/Free-Future-Radical-Chris-Anderson-ebook/dp/B002DYJR4G
The optimal price for this is zero, with the cost of providing the service added to the prices of the groceries.
https://www.amazon.com/Microeconomics-Paul-Krugman/dp/1319098789/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=microeconomics+krugman&qid=1567697193&s=gateway&sr=8-2
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https://www.amazon.com/College-Physics-Raymond-Serway/dp/1305952308
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Thank you!
Son, I proscribe to you a reading therapy, to be ingested when convenient:
https://www.amazon.com/Economics-Paul-Samuelson/dp/0073511293
Just read the introduction first, no need to go much further to find some answers.
On the flipside - it's great that you're rethinking basic premises of economy and/or world, that's how great ideas (and companies) are born.
> I'm still very doubtful of this claim.
You can look it up in e.g. Varian's undergrad micro book (Salanie has a great exposition for grad students) if you like, but the fact is that more accurate price, quality or preference discrimination will lead a Pareto improvement; maybe the confusing part is that all the welfare gains will go to the party that's able to discriminate better.
https://www.amazon.com/Microeconomics-6th-R-Glenn-Hubbard/dp/0134106245/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1539981303&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=microeconomics+textbook+6th+edition
I'll pay $5 - G&S
For one thing in a lot of places database administration is 75% reporting and analysis, 20% ETL/Integration and 5% Server admin. So no one will be too surprised should a database admin want to become a pure play data analyst.
That said I would A) get a GED (mostly because it will help in B) B) look at wgu or something like it for a degree in databases. You really can't beat hard credentials, and they aren't that expensive.
I'd also consider reading:
That should get you started.
> I'm specifically interested in how the economy is in practice, not theory. I want to know the logistics, current data and statistics (or as current as possible), and economic strategy at a beginner level.
I don't think this is a realistic goal. If you don't know the theory behind why something works, knowing the information of what is occurring will do nothing for you. If you want to know "economic strategy" that is something based in economic theory.
All the current data and statistics, taxes, etc., are available for you to peruse. You can go to Statistics Canada or you can look at the tax code for Canada. But none of that is going to be useful for what you want. I know it's not what you're hoping for, but I really would suggest you pick up an introductory textbook, like this or this and begin learning theory -- if you really want to understand economics.
You could also try Government Policy Towards Business. Maybe this is more what you're looking for? This text is a beginner's guide to business policy and is Canadian specific.
Textbooks are your best bet, for pretty much any subject, once you're past the layman's understanding. Just look up what textbooks they are using for Econ 101/102 in a solid University, then find a used copy.
When I was tutoring 101/102, the course used Krugman's Microeconomics and Macroeconomics, which were decent. It was interesting getting the introductory perspective from a prominent, Nobel Prize winning economist.
http://www.amazon.com/Managerial-Accounting-Ray-Garrison/dp/007802563X/
http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Microeconomics-7th-Gregory-Mankiw/dp/128516590X/
http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Corporate-Standard-Mcgraw-Hill-Insurance/dp/0078034639/
The list keeps going on and on and on. If your textbooks only cost $100, then that's great for you, your state, and your college bookstore. The costs are higher for fundamental courses in fields taken often, I assume, due in part to simple supply/demand, and due in part to the publishers' editing requirements.
Meanwhile, I had to pay $151 for a fairly thin paperback and its accompanying DVD for a sign language course because there were no good sources that sold both aside from the bookstore itself. Amazon sold the book and the DVD, but purchasing used would have had a combined price higher than purchasing new at the school bookstore, along with a several day long mailing time.
>All I'm asking is for you to back up your implied claim that creating incentives for business on a national level is an effective strategy for improving job availability and wages.
This is not a controversial claim, however. That cost incentives determine producer choice is the result of a basic economic model of producer choice (a good reference if you are unfamiliar with such models) and this model is supported by evidence from just about every study conducted, and it is simply not realistic to cite thousands and thousands of studies which support the notion that producers optimize and respond to incentives.
I could help with this easily, OP, but I think all you need is a decent or even semi-decent Economics or Microeconomics book to read.
This.
Or this.
Or this.
Any of these books will literally have this in chapters 1 or 2. It's really not that hard.
Let me know how you proceed and then maybe I can offer feedback.
>I'm interested in expanding my knowledge of modern socioeconomic thought, but for some reason I am certain that what Your Grace has in mind consists of one or several of the following:
I'd start something like this. Hal Varian is good but it can be esoteric at times. Nicholson and Snyder are also good and would probably be a bit easier of a read.
You could probably find a bit from Mankiw on utility in his macroeconomic books since it is often briefly touched on.
Utility is found more in microeconomic theory than macroeconomic theory but you will generally find it in the theory books as they tend to be a bit more advanced.
I only linked the the first two paragraphs so I know you didn't read the paper. This paper was cited in a textbook I had in graduate school and I did a case study on it. If you have a library card, I suggest you try to find the full text online because it's an interesting read.