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Hubbard & O'Brien is the only book that motivates students to learn economics through real business examples.   

The #1 question students of economics ask themselves is: "Why am I here, and will I ever use this"?  Hubbard & O'Brien answer this question by demonstrating that real businesses use economics to make real decisions daily.  This is motivating to all students, whether they are business majors or not.  All students can relate to businesses they encounter in their everyday lives.   Whether they open an art studio, do social work, trade on Wall Street, work for the government, or bartend at the local pub, students will benefit from understanding the economic forces behind their work.

Hubbard & O'Brien is the only book that motivates students to learn economics through real business examples.   

The #1 question students of economics ask themselves is: "Why am I here, and will I ever use this"?  Hubbard & O'Brien answer this question by demonstrating that real businesses use economics to make real decisions daily.  This is motivating to all students, whether they are business majors or not.  All students can relate to businesses they encounter in their everyday lives.   Whether they open an art studio, do social work, trade on Wall Street, work for the government, or bartend at the local pub, students will benefit from understanding the economic forces behind their work. 

"Do your students ask themselves: "Why am I here?  When will I use this information?"  How do you motivate them to see that economics is a dynamic, relevant discipline?"

• Chapter-Opening Cases about how the economics about to be learned impact a real business (a) set a real context for learning (b) spark students' interest (c) provide a unifying theme for the chapter.  For example, Chapter 3 - "Where Prices Come From: The Interaction of Demand and Supply", opens with a discussion Apple Computers and the Demand for iPods.
• “Economics in Your Life” feature was added to each chapter opener to create a personal dimension to the material for students.  This feature poses questions to students that they can think about, and the end of the chapter the authors answer the questions posed.
• Chapter Examples and Figures consistently revisit the business discussed in the opener and use that business (or industry) to motivate the economic principles.  For example, in Chapter 3, supply and demand is discussed using price per printer, and quantity of mp3 players demanded. 
• An Inside Look concludes chapters with a newspaper article illustrating how a key principle taught in the chapter was used by the chapter-opening case company to make a real business decision.  The authors provide an analysis of the article, corresponding graph(s), and Thinking Critically exercises.  For example, the Inside Look of Chapter 3 shows how Apple Computers, utilizing knowledge of supply and demand laws came to produce the iPhone.  Students (a) see how businesses use economics (b) gain a better understanding of the business climate (c) learn to critically read and analyze newspaper articles. 

OTHER POINTS OF DISTINCTION 

"How are your students' basic problem solving skills?  Are they comfortable with "word problems"?  Do they know where to begin solving an applied economics problem?  Do you find that many of the questions you get are less related to real economics, and more related to a lack of problem-solving skills?" 

• Solved Problems provide models of how to solve an economic problem by breaking it down step-by-step.  Each Solved Problem includes a problem statement, delineated steps to solve the problem, a graph, and a "Your Turn" feature directing students to a related end-of-chapter problem(s) for immediate practice. This keeps students focused on the main ideas of each chapter, and prevents them from getting bogged down due to a lack of basic math or "word problem" skills.  

• Additional Solved Problems are provided throughout the materials that support the textbook.  Students can access additional, interactive versions at the MyEconLab site and in the print study guide.  Instructors can walk students through solved problems using provided interactive PowerPoint solutions, and/or by utilizing the additional solved problems provided in the Instructors Manual (and tied to the relevant chapters).

"Would you like to add a further business emphasis to your course?"

• Optional Additional Business Emphasis: cover a core of microeconomics topics, then lend an additional business emphasis to your course by covering one or more optional chapters:

"How do you like to cover Market Structures?"

• Market Structures are covered in an intuitive fashion so that students of all backgrounds and majors (esp. business majors) can grasp the importance and flow of these concepts.  Hubbard/O’Brien start with Perfect Competition in Ch. 11, go to Monopolistic Competition in Ch. 12, then to Oligopoly in Ch. 13 and Monopoly in Ch.14.  This is going from having the MOST competitors in the market (perfect competition) to the least competitors (Monopoly).  Most books DO not cover this material in this order.

"Would you like to enliven your course by putting an early spotlight on a hot topic: international trade?"

Do your students “connect” with the material you present in class or they read in the book?  How do you facilitate that connection?

The Brand New “Economics in Your Life” feature was added to each chapter opener to create a personal dimension to the material for students.  This feature poses questions to students that they can think about, and the end of the chapter the authors answer the questions posed.  In Chapter 3 it is titled: What factors affect which digital music player you buy?

•  Suppose you are about to buy a new digital music player and that you are choosing between Apple’s iPod and Microsoft’s Zune.  As the industry leader, the iPod has many advantages over a new entrant like Zune.  One strategy Microsoft can use to overcome those advantages is to compete based on price.  Would you choose a Zune if it had a lower price than a comparable iPod?   Would you choose a Zune if the songs sold on Zune Marketplace were cheaper than the songs sold on iTunes?  As you read the chapter, see if can answer these questions.  You can check your answers against the ones we will provide at the end of the chapter on page xxx

Comments about this feature from reviewers:

I think it would be especially useful for students who are not inherently interested in business and do not see the impact that business can have on their lives. This is a nice way to relate the beginning of the chapter examples to the students' lives.

I do think the feature would appeal to students since it involves situations that relate to them.  I would use this type of example in class.  Students always need to be reminded that what they're studying in economics really does matter in making their own choices in life.  The placement of the feature (half at the beginning and half at the end) is good, although students who don't read a chapter in a single sitting might forget the two questions by the time they reach the end. 

Is it important for you to have the material in chapter 3 (Demand and Supply) easily understood and covered since it is the basis of much of what students learn as they move forward in the course?

Chapter 3 has been streamlined slightly by the removal of two graphs that were in the 1^st edition.  Most reviewers found this to be no loss of continuity and easier for students to follow. 

The authors’ goal is to streamline the demand and supply discussion and make it more accessible to students encountering demand and supply curves for the first time. 

Do you get into Healthcare issues in your economics course?

More Coverage of Healthcare:To address user and reviewer requests for more healthcare coverage, the authors have added the following:

• Chapter 5, New MTC:  Should the Government Run the Health Care System?
• Chapter 13, New Inside Look:  Target Says it Will match Wal-Mart’s $4 Generic Drug Price. Julie Appley, USA Today, September 23, 2006
• Chapter 16, New MTC:  Does Adverse Selection Explain Why Some People Do Not Have Health Insurance?

Do you wish you could assign end-of-chapter material as it relates to the chapters’ objectives?

Major Re-Organization of End-of-Chapter Material.  All eoc material – summary, review questions, problems -- is grouped by learning objective. The goal of this organization is to make it easier for professors to assign problems based on learning objective, both in the book and in MyEconLab.  Also, the students will have the summary material and questions and problems grouped together.

Comments about this feature from reviewers:

I like the organization of the problems and the summaries based on learning objectives.  Organizing the problems definitely makes it easier to assign problems on the topics I'd want (and also would make it obvious if I'm putting more emphasis--intentionally or unintentionally--on some objectives than others).  I also think the organization of the summaries by learning objective will be very helpful to students in seeing how each topic fits with the vocabulary and graphs for each objective. 

I like the new version and would recommend that you switch.  The switch should make the book accessible to more students.

I really LIKE the new organization.  Well done!  I very much like the format and think it will be helpful to students.

Is it important to you that your text is as current as possible?

NEW Public Choice Section included in Chapter 18:  The authors added a section on public choice to give students some understanding of the economic analysis of collective decision making.  Public Choice topics add to the strength of this text because students can easily see the applications.  The new section leads naturally into the current discussion of the tax system.

ALL New/Updated “Inside Look” feature: This newspaper feature ties the chapter concepts together by linking back to the real-world company discussed in the chapter opener and referenced throughout the chapter.  The feature includes a newspaper article, analysis of the article, figure and discussion of the figure, and “Thinking Critically” questions.  Several of the Inside Looks deal with a policy issue.   Here are just some examples of the new Inside Looks:

Chapter 3:  “Apple Coup: How Steve Jobs Played Hardball in iPhone Birth,” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 17, 2007

Chapter 6:  “Borders Slashes Buyer Rewards, Cuts Discounts,” Wall Street Journals, March 28, 2007

Chapter 11:  Wal-Mart’s Organic Offensive,  Pallavi Gogoi, Business Week, March 29, 2006

Chapter 13:  Target Says it Will match Wal-Mart’s $4 Generic Drug Price. Julie Appley, USA Today, September 23, 2006

Preface

Acknowledgments

Part 1: Introduction

CHAPTER 1: Economics: Foundations and Models

CHAPTER 1 APPENDIX: Using Graphs and Formulas

CHAPTER 2: Trade-offs, Comparative Advantage, and the Market System

CHAPTER 3: Where Prices Come From: The Interaction of Demand and Supply

CHAPTER 4: Economic Efficiency, Government Price Setting, and Taxes

Part 2: Markets in Action 

CHAPTER 5: Externalities, Environmental Policy, and Public Goods

CHAPTER 6: Elasticity: The Responsiveness of Demand and Supply

Part 3: Firms in the Domestic and International Economies

CHAPTER 7: Firms, the Stock Market, and Corporate Governance

CHAPTER 7 APPENDIX: Tools to Analyze Firms’ Financial Information

CHAPTER 8: Comparative Advantage and the Gains from International Trade

CHAPTER 8 APPENDIX: Multinational Firms

Part 4: Microeconomic Foundations: Consumers and Firms

CHAPTER 9: Consumer Choice and Behavioral Economics

CHAPTER 9 APPENDIX: Using Indifference Curves and Budget Lines to Understand Consumer Behavior

CHAPTER 10: Technology, Production, and Costs

CHAPTER 10 APPENDIX: Using Isoquants and Isocosts to Understand Production and Cost

Part 5: Market Structure and Firm Strategy

CHAPTER 11: Firms in Perfectly Competitive Markets

CHAPTER 12: Monopolistic Competition: The Competitive Model in a More Realistic Setting

CHAPTER 13: Oligopoly: Firms in Less Competitive Markets

CHAPTER 14: Monopoly and Antitrust Policy

CHAPTER 15: Pricing Strategy

Part 6: Markets for Factors of Production

CHAPTER 16: The Markets for Labor and Other Factors of Production

Part 7: Information, Taxes, and the Distribution of Income

CHAPTER 17: The Economics of Information

CHAPTER 18: Public Choice, Taxes, and the Distribution of Income 

Glossary

Company Index

Subject Index

Credits

Glenn Hubbard policymaker, professor, and researcher.

R.Glenn Hubbard is the Dean and Russell L. Carson Professor of Finance and Economics in the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University and Professor of Economics in Columbia’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a director of Automatic Data Processing, Black Rock Closed-End Funds, Dex Media, Duke Realty, KKR Financial Corporation, and Ripplewood Holdings. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1983. From 2001–2003, he served as Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and from 1991–1993, he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department. Glenn Hubbard’s fields of specialization are public economics, financial markets and institutions, corporate finance, macroeconomics, industrial organization, and public policy. He is the author of more than 90 articles in leading journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Public Economics, Quarterly Journal of Economics, RAND Journal of Economics, and Review of Economics and Statistics. His research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Bureau of Economic Research, and numerous private foundations.

Tony O’Brien award-winning professor and researcher.

Anthony Patrick O’Brien is a professor of economics at Lehigh University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1987. He has taught principles of economics for more than 15 years, in both large sections and small honors classes. He received the Lehigh University Award for Distinguished Teaching. He was formerly the director of the Diamond Center for Economic Education and was named a Dana Foundation Faculty Fellow and Lehigh Class of 1961 Professor of Economics. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Graduate School of Industrial Administration at Carnegie Mellon University. Anthony O’Brien’s research has dealt with such issues as the evolution of the U.S. automobile industry, the sources of U.S. economic competitiveness, the development of U.S. trade policy, the causes of the Great Depression, and the causes of black–white income differences. His research has been published in leading journals, including the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, Industrial Relations, and the Journal of Economic History. His research has been supported by grants from government agencies and private foundations. In addition to teaching and writing, Anthony O’Brien also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Socio-economics.

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