Literature Recommendation: Advanced Undergraduate Economics

Question

I come from a strong quantitative background and am going to law school in the fall. I'm interested in financial product regulation and competition law. I have taken an introductory course in economics, but my exposure to economics stopped there.

I was wondering if you had reading suggestions in micro, macro, and financial markets. Although I don't have an issue with calculus, lin alg, or probability, I tend to prefer learning by the use of examples, e.g. "too many chefs in the kitchen" to explain diminishing returns.

I really don't like jargon and so far I seem to come across a lot of online resources (especially regarding financial products) that seem to use a lot of jargon with little reference to basic concrete examples. I tend to be very detailed oriented, so I prefer texts that lay out their variables and constants clearly. Something lighter and shorter tailored for independent study would be best.

Answer 1

I would suggest Mankiw and EconTalk (despite my Keynesian leanings).

Specifically Mankiw's text "Principles of Economics" is a great math-light introduction that covers both Macro and Micro. I recommend this edition particularly because you can get it new off Amazon for under $20, though of course the latest edition is best, but the field hasn't changed that much that I'd spend 15x as much to get it.

Additionally Stiglitz, Piketty, Buchanan, and Fama (particularly Fama, given your interest in finance), are all great authors, and in my opinion fairly accessible (in book, not in paper, they're each just as jargonated in paper as any one else).

Hope that helps.

Answer 2

For industrial organization, you might try the freely available IO book by Church and Ware.

I don't know the book in and out, but it includes many case studies in antitrust and more general IO topics, so you might find it useful. It's not especially technical, for better or worse, with most chapters beginning with motivating vignettes and a more talky style than most books I've used.

Comprehensive coverage and extended treatments of such recent developments as incomplete contracts, property rights, and the boundaries of the firm; durable goods monopoly; nonlinear pricing; address models of product differentiation; supergames, tacit collusion, and facilitating practices; the new empirical industrial organization; the efficient component pricing rule and access pricing; regulatory and industry restructuring in network industries; and regulation under asymmetric information

http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1022&context=jeffrey_church

Answer 3

Since you mention competition policy, Motta's book on that topic "Competition Policy: Theory and Practice" is excellent (and puts all of the technical material into boxes so that it can be avoided if desired).

For micro, a good upper-level undegraduate treatment can be found in McCloskey's "Applied Theory of Price". Now out of print, but available here: http://www.deirdremccloskey.com/docs/price.pdf.

If you would prefer a print book, I would also recommend "Microeconomic Theory: Basic Principles and Extension" by Nicholson and Snyder.

The McCloskey and Nicholson & Snyder books are a bit more advanced than those used for a typical introduction to microeconomics, but I get the sense that that is what you are looking for.