J. Bradford DeLong
delong@econ.berkeley.edu
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/
Things I admire about Mankiw's Macroeconomics...
First and most important is the overwhelming clarity of this book. Mankiw is better than anyone else at writing crystal-clear descriptions of economic concepts. There are times when I think that Mankiw can make any economic concept--at least, the gist of any economic concept--accessible to anyone. (Of course, there is a flip side to clarity: sometimes, in my view at least, Mankiw makes concepts clearer than the truth.)
Other excellences:
- page 23--the description of chain-waiting
- page 24--his two arithmetic rules-of-thumb
- page 29--the seasonal cycle
- §3.4 is extremely well done
- figure 7.5 on page 174
- §9.1 on time horizons and model choice is magnificent
- figure 10.17
- §13.2 on aggregate supply and the Phillips curve
- page 457 on consumption experiments: the 1964 and 1968 tax law changes
- page 478 on interest rates and housing prices
- page 481 on the accelerator model of inventories
- pages 487 and 488 on the money multiplier
- page 492 on bank failures and the money supply in the 1930s
- pages 499-502 on the Taylor rule
- page 521: the case study on price stickiness