Economics of social problems

This book is an extensively rewritten and expanded version of our Economics of Social Problems which first appeared in 1976. We have taken the opportunity to incorporate numerous changes and extensions suggested by colleagues, students and reviewers who have used and commented upon the original edition. Our ideas have also been sharpened through writing a US version of the book in which problems similar to those faced in Britain are often resolved within a very different institutional framework. However, our basic approach to the analysis of social problems remains the same. Indeed, we believe that this approach - which is designed to encourage systematic analysis of alternative methods of economic organisation within the social policy area - is of even more relevance now than when we first wrote the book. Since then, privatisation proposals in health care, housing, education, etc. - which we discussed originally as possibilities suggested by academic inquiry - have, with the election of a radical right-wing government, assumed a central position on the policy agenda. As such, the topics covered here are of considerable

contemporary concern. The basic aim of the book is to introduce students to certain key economic concepts and methods of analysis through the study of a range of contemporary social problems. It is our deliberate intention to move away from the more abstract theorectical approach that is a feature of many introductory economics textbooks and instead try to provide a book that emphasises 'learning-by-doing'. This is done through the simultaneous development of the relevant theory and its application to particular social issues. The success of the first edition of the book has shown this approach to be both popular and effective.

All the relevant concepts and theories are explained in the text, and so no prior training in economics is required. Accordingly, the book may be used as a basic text for an introductory economics course. If it is used in this way, the student will acquire many of the basic skills of economic analysis that are usually obtained in a rather less appealing manner from a more conventional introductory textbook. Alternatively, it may be used as a supplementary text to provide students with an appreciation of the relevance of economic analysis to a range of instrinsically interesting social problems not normally dealt with in introductory textbooks. We believe that the book will prove of interest and value not only to students who will go on to specialise in economics but also to students in other disciplines, such as sociology, politics and social administration who would like to consider the contribution that economics can make towards understanding some of the pressing social problems that confront us today.

Although the book has been designed primarily for use at the introductory level, we hope that it may also be of interest to those with a more extensive background in economics and/or the problem areas studied. We believe that the approach we have adopted for the study of each topic is a useful way of clarifying the issues involved and has some claim to originality. This approach is discussed more fully below.