ISBN9780324421460

Easy and fun to use. Excellent blend of academia and real-life examples. Charts, graphs, and illustrations were colorful and easy to understand. Also, authors Hall and Liberman provide readers access to their macroecon website for additional study. I used this text at the postgraduate level - great for undergrads, too.

I was required to use this book for a college macro course. I found this to be one of the worst business textbooks I've seen so far. I think it fails its job at giving the average college student a good understanding of the macro economy.

When explaining simple concepts that should be easy to grasp, the book loads the reader down with obscure mathematical equations and other gobblygook. On rather complicated topics where additional details would help, they try to condense the topics making it difficult to see the big picture. To figure out what I was supposed to learn, I had to use other sources to help me out (i.e. websites and other business books). I also think the authors are poor at making comprehensible analogies.

Perhaps the most annoying aspect was the author's injected liberal opinion. In a few chapters, they innuendo their griefs about how businesses are unfair to poor people and that successful individuals should have their winnings reallocated to the less privileged. They also gripe about how not everyone can find a job in a capitalist society. It seems that the authors have little understanding of concepts like competition and motivation to be successful.

If you are a course coordinator considering this book for a macroeconomics class, please do your students a favor and seek a different book. As a student, it is more helpful to have a book free of opinions. A book that uses clear explanations rather than confusing lines and charts. If the websites and other sources I used can clearly state the material, so can a textbook!

The first time I tried to take economics, I gave up. The teacher was no good, and the textbook we were using didn't help. So I put the course off for two years until I couldn't wait any longer.

But things have changed, thank God! The second time around I had a much better teacher, but more than that, we used this textbook instead, and I swear it helped me do well in the class. It is SO clearly written, with great examples and great stories. I admit I was intimidated by economics at first, but this book has a way of explaining the concepts that makes you think, "Hey, I actually get this." The authors give you credit for being an intelligent person, and they provide really clear analysis while walking you through the tougher parts step by step.

As for the review here that talks about the authors' political agenda, I have to come to the authors' defense. I consider myself very middle of the road politically, and believe me, there is nothing objectionable here. The authors are very careful to present both sides of various debates, and those debates are always framed as two sides of a story - and they don't take either side, they just report the controversy and let the reader decide for himself.

After reading this book and taking this course, I feel that I understand the newspaper and TV news much better. So, thanks Robert Hall and Marc Lieberman, I got an A in principles of econ when I thought the best I could hope for was a D.