This unique approach to intermediate microeconomics reverses the standard order of topics, provides examples and solved practice problems.

During the past decade Arthur M. Okun, like many economists, focused attention on finding ways to fight inflation without sacrificing goals of high employment and prosperity. In recent years the economy has been plagued by stagflation--the simultaneous persistence of high inflation and high unemployment. Traditional methods of aggregate demand management that have been reasonably successful in curing either one or the other of these problems have not been effective, and the nation has not been able to contain inflation even in periods of economic slack. It now seems clear that the economists’ traditional model that presumes short-run flexibility in wages and prices no longer holds for most of the industrial world, and hence the response of inflation to shifts in macroeconomic policy is weak. In this volume Okun seeks to explain that loss of responsiveness by analyzing how modern labor and product markets work and how they are structured. A central feature of Okun’s analysis is implicit contract theory, which recognizes that efficiency-maximizing decisions by business firms reflect long-term considerations as well as short-term changes in markets. His interpretation of microeconomic behavior and macroeconomic performance provides a basis for the design of policies to deal with stagflation.

This book is the first comprehensive text on index number theory since Irving Fisher's 1922 The Making of Index Numbers. The book covers intertemporal and interspatial comparisons; ratio- and difference-type measures; discrete and continuous time environments; and upper- and lower-level indices. Guided by economic insights, this book develops the instrumental or axiomatic approach.

It has become trite to observe that increases in health care costs have become unsustainable. How best for policy to address these increases, however, depends in part on the degree to which they represent increases in the real quantity of medical services as opposed to increased unit prices of existing services. And an even more fundamental question is the degree to which the increased spending actually has purchased improved health. Accounting for Health and Health Care addresses both these issues. The government agencies responsible for measuring unit prices for medical services have taken steps in recent years that have greatly improved the accuracy of those measures. Nonetheless, this book has several recommendations aimed at further improving the price indices.

Provides comprehensive, up-to-date coverage of the key themes and principles of conflict economics.