Economics: A Beginner's Guide

Author: Wu Balin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-07-01
Features: This book is concise, easy to understand, and written in a lively and fluent style, making it highly readable. It can be grasped by individuals with a high school education or higher. It is suitable as a textbook for universities and colleges, as well as for reference by young students and economic professionals. This book presents a new approach to economics, differing from traditional political economy and popular Western economic content and systems. The book begins with the foundation of economics—the scarcity of resources—and discusses resource allocation and its mechanisms, consumer behavior theory, costs and revenues, corporate systems and objectives, economic game theory and information economics, market failures, income distribution rules in a market economy, the formation and regulation of wealth disparities, the functioning of money, banks, and financial markets, unemployment, inflation, and monetary tightening in macroeconomic operations, as well as fiscal and monetary policies used by governments to regulate the economy. It also covers basic knowledge of international trade, international investment, and international finance in open economies, initial explorations into sustainable economic development, the relationship between the new economy and new institutions, and the new conflicts brought by the new economy. Additionally, it provides an overview of social and economic development trends and prospects.