Originally published in 1976, Supply in a Market Economy was a new kind of introductory micro-economics text which both assesses the usefulness of traditional theory in tackling social and economic problems and compares and contrasts the alternative approaches to the practical problems inherent in the allocation of scarce resources. Richard Jones has succeeded in bringing together the most useful features of a standard microeconomics theory book with empirical and applied material more usually dealt with separately in second year surveys of industrial organisation.
The book gives full coverage to the standard theories of the firm, of production, of cost and scale, and of location, to recent critiques of these theories and to alternative approaches now being proposed. Integrated into this theoretical background is a clear analysis of the relationship of these theories to market structures and the economics of industry, and a ‘real-world’ examination of markets in action – with individual sections on the control of rents, on the water supply industry, on the effect of taxation on commodities, and on the economics of crime and its prevention.
Supply in a Market Economy would prove to be an invaluable new course-book for first and second year students of microeconomics at the time and particularly for those non-specialists who were impatient to see the relevance and applications of traditional theory to real problems. Now it can be read in its historical context.