100 books like Microeconomics

By Robert Pindyck, Daniel Rubinfeld,

Here are 100 books that Microeconomics fans have personally recommended if you like Microeconomics. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Martin Sternstein Author Of Barron's AP Statistics

From my list on statistical insights into social issues.

Why am I passionate about this?

I taught for 45 years at Ithaca College broken by two years as Fulbright Professor in West Africa at the University of Liberia. During my years in academia, I developed several new courses including a popular “Math in Africa” class and the first U.S. course for college credit in chess theory. I’ve always had a passion for and continue to have strong interests in (1) national educational and social issues concerning equal access to math education for all and (2) teaching others about the power of mathematics and statistics to help one more deeply understand social issues.

Martin's book list on statistical insights into social issues

Martin Sternstein Why did Martin love this book?

Steven Levitt, Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, has written a thoughtful book at the layperson level to help one understand how mathematical and economic tools provide insights into sensitive social issues from racism to abortion.

He delves into predicting the long-term consequences of short-term decisions. This book is not intended for the college classroom, and it is controversial, but I found it to be a fascinating read.

By Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked Freakonomics as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The legendary bestseller that made millions look at the world in a radically different way returns in a new edition, now including an exclusive discussion between the authors and bestselling professor of psychology Angela Duckworth.

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? Which should be feared more: snakes or french fries? Why do sumo wrestlers cheat? In this groundbreaking book, leading economist Steven Levitt—Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago and winner of the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark medal for the economist under 40 who has made the greatest contribution to the discipline—reveals that…


Book cover of Parks and Recreation and Economics

Ana Espinola-Arredondo Author Of Intermediate Microeconomic Theory: Tools and Step-by-Step Examples

From my list on getting into microeconomics.

Why am I passionate about this?

When understanding the interactions in our economy, it is critical to recognize all participants in this complex system. I’m passionate about microeconomics because it provides me with a different perspective to examine the world around me. I use my microeconomic glasses and I enjoy rationalizing the daily interactions and predicting the potential outcomes.

Ana's book list on getting into microeconomics

Ana Espinola-Arredondo Why did Ana love this book?

This is a funny exploration of the popular TV series, showing how each episode is packed with microeconomics topics, including comparative advantage, demand and supply, costs, market imperfections, and government interventions.

It even includes several references to macroeconomics, including growth, labor markets, and inequality.

Readers can also consider other titles in this series, based on their taste of popular culture, including Superheroes and Economics, Seinfeld and Economics, and The Beatles and Economics, among others.

By Jadrian Wooten,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Parks and Recreation and Economics as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book provides an in-depth look at the primary foundations of economics explored through the lens of the Pawnee Department of Parks and Recreation. Each episode of the hit television series, Parks and Recreation, includes material to help an eager learner understand the basics of one of the most fascinating fields of study.

Whether you've wondered how economists determine specialization or why fast-food restaurants continue to pop up around your neighborhood, the same situations have occurred in Pawnee. Each chapter highlights key scenes or major episodes that demonstrate how the characters experience economics in exactly the same way the rest…


Book cover of Microeconomics

Ana Espinola-Arredondo Author Of Intermediate Microeconomic Theory: Tools and Step-by-Step Examples

From my list on getting into microeconomics.

Why am I passionate about this?

When understanding the interactions in our economy, it is critical to recognize all participants in this complex system. I’m passionate about microeconomics because it provides me with a different perspective to examine the world around me. I use my microeconomic glasses and I enjoy rationalizing the daily interactions and predicting the potential outcomes.

Ana's book list on getting into microeconomics

Ana Espinola-Arredondo Why did Ana love this book?

This is a widely used book in introduction to microeconomics courses in colleges around the world, from the Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman.

The book assumes no algebra or calculus, other than elementary arithmetic, thus being appropriate for students from different backgrounds.

Each chapter is well motivated with real-life problems and data, followed by a basic, intuitive, explanation of how microeconomics helps us model and understand the tradeoff that individuals or firms face in that setting.

Highly recommended for students with little math background.

By Paul Krugman, Robin Wells,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Microeconomics as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When it comes to explaining current economic conditions, there is no economist readers trust more than New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman.  Term after term, Krugman is earning that same level of trust in the classroom, with more and more instructors introducing students to the fundamental principles of economics via Krugman’s signature storytelling style. The new Third Edition of Paul Krugman and Robin Wells’s Economics is their most accomplished yet—extensively updated to offer new examples and stories, new case studies from the business world, and expert coverage of the ongoing financial crisis. Watch a video interview of…


Book cover of The Economy: Economics for a Changing World

Ana Espinola-Arredondo Author Of Intermediate Microeconomic Theory: Tools and Step-by-Step Examples

From my list on getting into microeconomics.

Why am I passionate about this?

When understanding the interactions in our economy, it is critical to recognize all participants in this complex system. I’m passionate about microeconomics because it provides me with a different perspective to examine the world around me. I use my microeconomic glasses and I enjoy rationalizing the daily interactions and predicting the potential outcomes.

Ana's book list on getting into microeconomics

Ana Espinola-Arredondo Why did Ana love this book?

This eBook, developed by faculty members from top institutions, is available for free from the developers’ website, offers several online resources, it's frequently updated, translated to several languages, and has been widely adopted in several countries.

The book includes both the usual topics for courses on introduction to microeconomics and introduction to macroeconomics, using a similar writing style as other introductory textbooks (assumes no mathematical background), thus being accessible to a wide range of students.

Unlike similar books, however, it structures topics differently: instead of presenting chapters according to the main tool or concept being introduced, chapters are presented according to real-world problems.

While this can help motivate each chapter, it may require some adapting from the instructor’s teaching style.

By The CORE Team,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Economy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The only introductory economics text to equip students to address today's pressing problems by mastering the conceptual and quantitative tools of contemporary economics.

OUP has partnered with the international collaborative project of CORE researchers and teachers to bring students a book and learning system that complements and enhances CORE's open-access online e-book.

The Economy:
- is a new approach that integrates recent developments in economics including contract theory, strategic interaction, behavioural economics and financial instability
- Engages with issues students of economics care about, exploring inequality, climate change, economic instability, wealth creation and innovation, among other issues.
- provides a…


Book cover of Lecture Notes in Microeconomic Theory: The Economic Agent

Felix Munoz-Garcia Author Of Advanced Microeconomic Theory: An Intuitive Approach with Examples

From my list on advanced microeconomic theory.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Professor of Economics at Washington State University. My research focuses on applying Industrial Organization to polluting industries and other regulated markets. I analyze how firms strategically respond to environmental regulation, including their output and pricing decisions, their investments in clean technologies, and mergers decisions, both under complete and incomplete information contexts.

Felix's book list on advanced microeconomic theory

Felix Munoz-Garcia Why did Felix love this book?

A short presentation of consumer and producer theory (no game theory or contract theory), very rigorous, and with some interesting examples.

Challenging exam exercises at the end of the book. Last but not least, the eBook is available for free from Prof. Ariel Rubinstein’s website.

While most students may find it too succinct to be the only reference in PhD Microeconomics courses, it is probably one of the references several students use (seeking different explanations and examples) at top PhD programs.

By Ariel Rubinstein,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Lecture Notes in Microeconomic Theory as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book presents Ariel Rubinstein's lecture notes for the first part of his well-known graduate course in microeconomics. Developed during the fifteen years that Rubinstein taught the course at Tel Aviv University, Princeton University, and New York University, these notes provide a critical assessment of models of rational economic agents, and are an invaluable supplement to any primary textbook in microeconomic theory. In this fully revised and expanded second edition, Rubinstein retains the striking originality and deep simplicity that characterize his famously engaging style of teaching. He presents these lecture notes with a precision that gets to the core of…


Book cover of Competition Demystified: A Radically Simplified Approach to Business Strategy

Jonathan B. Baker Author Of The Antitrust Paradigm: Restoring a Competitive Economy

From my list on reads before—or after—you learn antitrust law.

Why am I passionate about this?

After college, I studied economics and law. Working in antitrust lets me use what I’ve learned about both fields. I’ve been a professor at a law school and a business school and worked on competition issues while serving in senior government positions in multiple federal agencies, including both antitrust agencies. I also like working in antitrust because fostering competition is important to our economy. Competition encourages firms to pursue success by developing and selling better and cheaper products and services, not by coordinating with their rivals or trying to exclude them. And I like antitrust because the cases can involve any industry—I might learn about baby food one day and digital platforms the next.  

Jonathan's book list on reads before—or after—you learn antitrust law

Jonathan B. Baker Why did Jonathan love this book?

The antitrust rules introduced in the late 1970s and 1980s are largely still in place. 

In important ways, those rules were shaped by the economic analyses and arguments of well-known scholars associated with the University of Chicago.

Since then, microeconomics has been transformed using concepts from game theory, and economic thinking about the competitive consequences of firm practices has changed.  This economic-based guide to business strategy distills key concepts that underlie modern antitrust analysis, which is a close cousin to business strategy.

The book lays out those concepts clearly and accessibly, with instructive case studies and minimal jargon. These ideas from economic theory, combined with new empirical tools and data, are the basis for the recent economic research that finds that today’s antitrust rules are inadequate to prevent the acquisition and exercise of market power. 

By Bruce Greenwald, Judd Kahn,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Competition Demystified as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Bruce Greenwald, one of the nation's leading business professors, presents a new and simplified approach to strategy that cuts through much of the fog that has surrounded the subject. Based on his hugely popular course at Columbia Business School, Greenwald and his coauthor, Judd Kahn, offer an easy-to-follow method for understanding the competitive structure of your industry and developing an appropriate strategy for your specific position.

Over the last two decades, the conventional approach to strategy has become frustratingly complex. It's easy to get lost in a sophisticated model of your competitors, suppliers, buyers, substitutes, and other players, while losing…


Book cover of Game Theory: An Introduction

Felix Munoz-Garcia Author Of Game Theory: An Introduction with Step-by-Step Examples

From my list on learning Game Theory.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Professor of Economics at Washington State University. My research focuses on applying Game Theory and Industrial Organization models to polluting industries and other regulated markets. I analyze how firms strategically respond to environmental regulation, including their output and pricing decisions, their investments in clean technologies, and merger decisions, both under complete and incomplete information contexts.

Felix's book list on learning Game Theory

Felix Munoz-Garcia Why did Felix love this book?

An excellent game theory book for graduate students, especially for Master's students taking second-year elective courses on game theory, and even technical enough for the first-year Ph.D. Microeconomics course (since most schools spend most of the second semester covering game theory, contract theory, and applications.)

Rigorous, with detailed definitions and notation, yet accessible to senior undergraduate students at top schools (with a strong math background) or Master's students.

By Steven Tadelis,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Game Theory as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This comprehensive textbook introduces readers to the principal ideas and applications of game theory, in a style that combines rigor with accessibility. Steven Tadelis begins with a concise description of rational decision making, and goes on to discuss strategic and extensive form games with complete information, Bayesian games, and extensive form games with imperfect information. He covers a host of topics, including multistage and repeated games, bargaining theory, auctions, rent-seeking games, mechanism design, signaling games, reputation building, and information transmission games. Unlike other books on game theory, this one begins with the idea of rationality and explores its implications for…


Book cover of Advanced Microeconomic Theory

Felix Munoz-Garcia Author Of Advanced Microeconomic Theory: An Intuitive Approach with Examples

From my list on advanced microeconomic theory.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Professor of Economics at Washington State University. My research focuses on applying Industrial Organization to polluting industries and other regulated markets. I analyze how firms strategically respond to environmental regulation, including their output and pricing decisions, their investments in clean technologies, and mergers decisions, both under complete and incomplete information contexts.

Felix's book list on advanced microeconomic theory

Felix Munoz-Garcia Why did Felix love this book?

This book is highly recommended for students in graduate programs with a strong game theory and mechanism design focus.

As MWG, it is especially technical in some chapters, but its writing is more “modern” in Introductions and other sections, helping the reader “see the forest” a bit more easily than with other books. The math appendix is also excellent and exercises are a good challenge for strong students.

By Geoffrey Jehle, Philip Reny,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Advanced Microeconomic Theory as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Your classic advanced microeconomic theory textbook delivering rigorous coverage of modern microeconomics.


Book cover of Microeconomic Foundations I: Choice and Competitive Markets

Felix Munoz-Garcia Author Of Advanced Microeconomic Theory: An Intuitive Approach with Examples

From my list on advanced microeconomic theory.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am Professor of Economics at Washington State University. My research focuses on applying Industrial Organization to polluting industries and other regulated markets. I analyze how firms strategically respond to environmental regulation, including their output and pricing decisions, their investments in clean technologies, and mergers decisions, both under complete and incomplete information contexts.

Felix's book list on advanced microeconomic theory

Felix Munoz-Garcia Why did Felix love this book?

The first volume examines consumer and producer theory, choice under uncertainty, and general equilibrium; while the second analyzes game theory, contract theory, and mechanism design.

These are, perhaps, the most rigorous, detailed, and advanced books of the typical topics covered in PhD Microeconomics in top institutions nowadays. While excellent for instructors, or advanced PhD students, the two volumes may be rather difficult to cover in the first-year PhD Microeconomics sequence, given their length and technicalities.

Nonetheless, both volumes will be quite helpful for instructors teaching graduate Microeconomics everywhere!

By David M. Kreps,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Microeconomic Foundations I as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Microeconomic Foundations I develops the choice, price, and general equilibrium theory topics typically found in first-year theory sequences, but in deeper and more complete mathematical form than most standard texts provide. The objective is to take the reader from acquaintance with these foundational topics to something closer to mastery of the models and results connected to them.
* Provides a rigorous treatment of some of the basic tools of economic modeling and reasoning, along with an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of these tools * Complements standard texts * Covers choice, preference, and utility; structural properties of preferences and…


Book cover of Value and Capital

Omar F. Hamouda Author Of Money, Investment and Consumption: Keynes's Macroeconomics Rethought

From my list on theoretical reads about money, credit, and debt.

Why am I passionate about this?

 I am a reader of primary texts. One can be dismayed by the number of followers’ easy reliance on secondary literature to create interpretations of their leader’s economic ideas about the sources of society’s well-being. Distortive alteration and the recycling of unfounded ideas about conflicting influential economists’ theories is actually counterproductive. Only scrutiny of an author’s work can reveal false assertions. I’m proposing four authors I’ve scrutinised to find out what they really thought about my main teaching interests: money and credit, and their impact on prices, and the manipulation of the volume of either/both to affect purchasing power. It has been astounding to learn what theory applications, distorting their intent, bear their name.

Omar's book list on theoretical reads about money, credit, and debt

Omar F. Hamouda Why did Omar love this book?

Hicks envisaged an economy in which individuals choose to offer labour for income to purchase products of their effort or to spend time in uncompensated leisure.

His is a theorical economy: individuals and firms interact to determine current and future supplies and demands. It establishes the laws governing the price system regulating exchange and production.

In this world of transparent, free movement of goods and resources without government, regulations, banks, and unions, there is no room for monopolies or capital accumulation. 

Money as intermediary is simply a unit of account. Growth is the outcome of needs, efforts, and mutual cooperation.

Value and Capital, a jewel, is the core of current microeconomics, but Hicks’ economy, in which inflation and income disparities are non-issues, is not a capitalist but a market one; ironically present microeconomists conflate the two.

By J. R. Hicks,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Value and Capital as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in microeconomics, game theory, and economics?

Microeconomics 41 books
Game Theory 42 books
Economics 411 books