Principles of economics/C .E.Ferguson and Juanita M.Kreps

It is customary to justify the appearance of a new introductory economics text by criticizing the particular shortcomings of the old ones. But actually, there are excellent texts available for either a full-year or a one-semester course. Despite one's personal enthusiasm for his own product, it hardly seems necessary to promise to revolutionize this market.

The content of the principles tests has had an interesting evolu tion. Prior to 1930 most economists regarded low price, high output for each firm as the dominant economic objective, and textbooks accordingly placed their greatest emphasis upon the theory of the individual firm and on the firm as an institution of American economic society. The analysis of the firm in the light of this implicit policy objective led inevitably to the conclusion that if the government were to exercise any economic control. this control should be over the extent of industrial concentration. Then the economic scene shifted. With the massive and prolonged unemployment of the depression decade, full employment rapidly became the dominant economic objective. Authors began to incorporate this changing attitude into principles texts. Although still giving full treatment to the traditional theory of the firm and to objectives and policy on the microeconomic level, macroeconomic analysis was added to the principles course. All important current texts follow the general pattern of empha sizing the twin objectives of full employment and low-price, high-output policy for the individual firm.