Samuel Bowles is Research Professor and Director of the Behavioral Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. He has taught microeconomic theory to undergraduates and PhD candidates at Harvard University, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Siena. He is part of the global CORE team, writers of The Economy and Economy, Society, and Public Policy. Political leaders including President Nelson Mandela, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert Kennedy have sought his advice on economic policy.Simon D. Halliday is an Associate Professor in the Economics Department at the University of Bristol. He has also taught microeconomics, game theory, and industrial organization to graduate and undergraduate students at Smith College in the U.S., the University of Cape Town, and Royal Holloway, University of London. In addition to these fields he is a specialist in behavioral economics and economics education.

I envy the students who will have the opportunity to take a microeconomics course based on this brilliant textbook. Not only will they find it fascinating. It will change their lives, in every way, for the better.

• PART I: People, Economy, and Society 1: Society: coordination problems and economic institutions 2: People: preferences, beliefs, and constraints 3: Doing the best you can: constrained optimization 4: Property, power, and exchange: mutual gains and conflicts 5: Coordination failures and institutional responses PART II: Markets for Goods and Services 6: Production: technology and specialization 7: Demand: Willingness to pay and prices 8: Supply: firms' costs, output, and profit 9: Competition, rent-seeking, and market equilibration PART III: Markets with Incomplete Contracting 10: Information: contracts, norms, and power 11: Work, wages, and unemployment 12: Interest, credit, and wealth constraints PART IV: Economic Systems and Policy 13: A risky and unequal world 14: Perfect competition and the invisible hand 15: Capitalism: innovation and inequality 16: Public policy and mechanism design

Samuel Bowles is Research Professor and Director of the Behavioral Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. He has taught microeconomic theory to undergraduates and PhD candidates at Harvard University, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Siena. He is part of the global CORE team, writers of The Economy and Economy, Society, and Public Policy. Political leaders including President Nelson Mandela, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert Kennedy have sought his advice on economic policy.Simon D. Halliday is an Associate Professor in the Economics Department at the University of Bristol. He has also taught microeconomics, game theory, and industrial organization to graduate and undergraduate students at Smith College in the U.S., the University of Cape Town, and Royal Holloway, University of London. In addition to these fields he is a specialist in behavioral economics and economics education.

I envy the students who will have the opportunity to take a microeconomics course based on this brilliant textbook. Not only will they find it fascinating. It will change their lives, in every way, for the better.

• PART I: People, Economy, and Society 1: Society: coordination problems and economic institutions 2: People: preferences, beliefs, and constraints 3: Doing the best you can: constrained optimization 4: Property, power, and exchange: mutual gains and conflicts 5: Coordination failures and institutional responses PART II: Markets for Goods and Services 6: Production: technology and specialization 7: Demand: Willingness to pay and prices 8: Supply: firms' costs, output, and profit 9: Competition, rent-seeking, and market equilibration PART III: Markets with Incomplete Contracting 10: Information: contracts, norms, and power 11: Work, wages, and unemployment 12: Interest, credit, and wealth constraints PART IV: Economic Systems and Policy 13: A risky and unequal world 14: Perfect competition and the invisible hand 15: Capitalism: innovation and inequality 16: Public policy and mechanism design