Economics of the firm: Theory and practice

The sixth edition of this text continues to stress solid coverage of microeconomic theory, complemented with a heavy dose of easy-to-relate to pragmatic discussions of how a competitive enterprise economy functions. Application capsules demonstrate the theory in practice, consumer surplus and gains from trade and exchange are considered, and a new section on real world demand curves and elasticity of demand has been added. A major revision in the discussion of the multiple goals of firms has been added, and the oligopoly chapter has been substantially revised and new material on cooperative versus non-cooperative behaviour is included. The analysis of resource markets has been revised by adding a section that more fully discusses the behaviour of resource owners and the shape of resource supply curves. The general equilibrium chapter has been revised to first discuss and explicitly treat the general equilibrium of the firm and margin notes highlighting basic concepts, economic principles and core truths about economic behaviour have been added throughout.