Microeconomic Foundations I: Choice and Competitive Markets

Disclaimer: My English usage is quite bad. I apologize in advanced to every review's readersI've read some of canonical textbooks in this fields such as MWG, Varian (Microeconomic Analysis), Kreps, Jehle and Reny since I'm TA in undergraduate advanced microeconomic theory course (and one of my interested research topics is consumer theory). My biased ranking among them is Kreps > MWG > Jehle and Reny >> Varian. In my opinion, as I'm also master degree student in mathematics, expositions in Kreps and MWG are quite rigorous and the author illustrate every notions with full of elegance, though Kreps uses more rigorous approach to teach students "graduate level microeconomics".While a bit less rigour, MWG looks like encyclopedia for microeconomics since its coverage is quite wide. MWG has contents from consumer theory, production theory, partial and general equilibrium, core of equilibrium and Tatonement, game theory, a glimpses on information economics and mechanism design. Kreps, in opposite style, covers only around one third of MWG (consumer and production theory, aggregation and general equilibrium) but in more detailed and more rigorous (IMHO, maybe the same level to research papers in this field). I prefer Kreps to MWG because I think that good textbook need not to be encyclopedia, but it should discuss in-depth for only some single topic and Kreps is the textbook in the latter style. Both of them have well written math appendices but Kreps has more completed one.Jehle and reny, as I think the expositions in this book is in the same rigour level to Varian, is much more better than Varian since it didn't try to avoid mathematics usage when it should be applied. Jehle and Reny's book uses only undergraduate level mathematical economics to derive almost all of results (except they use Brouwer's fixed point theory to prove the existence of Nash Equilibrium, but it's just an infinitesimal part of the book which can be skipped in the advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate courses). Moreover, it contains plenty of challenging exercises which some are on par to B-C level MWG's exercises. Lastly, Varian has many shortcoming in my point of view. The organization of the contents in Varian is unnatural for me since its first chapter is production. My conjecture for the reason maybe starting with production is easier. The theory on production has less things to concern than consumer side, modern consumer theory bases on more axiomatic construction than production theory. Moreover, although using mathematics in the same level to Jehle and Reny, Varian tries to oversimplify everything and this makes the taste of the subject change drastically. Something should be discussed more rigorously (while this mayn't always mean it need much more sophisticated math notions) but Varian choose to treat it as a black box.Some people may argue that Varian can be the best one since it doesn't require solid math background to prove and understand the results therein, but I don't even think this can be one of my criteria for review textbook in this level. Basic set theory (not need to be axiomatic, i.e. ZFC set theory) and basic real analysis (in the level of babyrudin as mandatory background, the familiarity in measure theory and basic functional analysis are plus) should be background for everyone who want to study graduate school in economics, especially Ph.D. level. The purpose of Ph.D program in economics is to produce researchers who have solid understanding economics in an acceptable level of rigour. Hence, frankly speaking, I don't think Varian is in the level of graduate course (Jehle and Reny is almost the same level to Varian, but it has more rigorous treatment and good exercises). MWG and Kreps assume reasonable math backgrounds and are in the right place for graduate level studying at all.

David Kreps' "Microeconomic Foundations I: Choice and Competitive Markets" is intended to be a mathematical treatment of the topics of most first-year PhD Microeconomics theory courses. The book covers numerous fundamental ideas and ends with several chapters on general equilibrium theory, especially as described by Walras, Debreu, and Arrow. The ideas in this book are not limited to just a few theorists, however, and all sources are carefully included in the thorough bibliography. Within each chapter are intuitive explanations of the ideas of the chapter, formal proofs of the propositions, a descriptive bibliography, and some exercises.This book has some advantages over other first-year texts. The cost of this book is about one-third of that of other first-year microeconomics textbooks (see Mas-Colell's "Microeconomic Theory" for comparison). This book is more rigorous mathematically and relies on an axiom-definition-proposition model for explaining ideas. The appendix of this book is particularly useful; in it are rigorous explanations of mathematical concepts like induction, basic topology, convexity, correspondences, Berge's Theorem, constrained optimization, dynamic programming, and fixed-point theorems.Most first-year graduate students will end up using the textbooks assigned by their professors, so this advice is aimed towards professors of economics. I recommend this book because it is more focused than Mas-Colell, it is a lot less expensive for poor graduate students, and it uses a high level of mathematical rigor that is useful for graduate students who want to read papers in microeconomic theory.

As a PhD student I've found this book superb. Most of readers have probably reached this book in looking for a MWG substitute and let me tell you your research has ended. I was trained using MWG and three key differences must be noticed. First of all, this book is more structured since it follows the axiomatic approach that Kreps tend to use in all his books. Everything is linked and approached with the notion of choice and by doing so all the content turns cristal clear. Second and independently of MWG, it only has (by the time I write down this) two years in the market. Most of the people (even Kreps) argue that the material covered in this book has at least 30 years so you novelty is not a major point. However, seems like Kreps is pointing out the classical theory oriented towards what's going on today in the profesion. So I would say is something to be considered. Last but not least, it far cheaper - only 35 usd (again, by the time I write down this) and to be honest, I think this won't be the case in near future. Definitely, an excellent book with a bright future not only as a text book but also as a reference in microeconomic theory.

Comprehensive and concrete as it is, this book provides an excellent summary of modern microeconomic, although in this book only decision theory and general equilibrium theory are presented. It is of a typical Kreps style: both economic intuition and the rigidity of mathematics are stressed, and they are organized in a good framework. More important, the history of some classical ideas in economics appears in introduction, which makes the content comes much more naturally, and can fully arouse the economics intuition of readers. Besides, in mathematical proof, crucial steps are explained in detail, which makes it easier to understand. I expect the book II which may cover game theory and mechanism design theory.

Buon testo per studiare microeconomia in inglese.

Kreps does a complete analysis about the Microeconomic Theory. The way that he explains each subject it's very clear. Besides, on each chapter has an exercise section where you have the opportunity to solve problems. However, it might be difficult to understand it if you don't familiarize with math language (demonstrations).

This is a post-graduate text in Microeconomics, more advaced in severl apoints. It gives complete treatment to consumer's theory, theory of the firm and general equilibrium. Indicated for those who research in the pure theoretical area of Microeconomics.

good book.very cleanused as my textbook

Finally a book that presents all crucial steps in proofs and reasoning. Highly recommended for the first term in the Micro sequence.