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Essential Mathematics for Economic Analysis
Essential Mathematics for Economic Analysis has established itself as the number one choice for academics in Europe when searching for a rigorous, logical treatment of Mathematical analysis for Economists.
736 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 5, 2012
This is an excellent undergraduate calculus textbook for non maths students, which manages to be rigorous while mantaining and engaging style. It assumes very little in terms of pre-requisites, and indeed the first five chapters allow students to catch up on pre-calculus material (including factoring of polynomials, equations and inequalities and functions).
It is packed with exercises, with solutions available either at the end of the book or in the student's manual, and there is also a companion website to keep you entartained with multiple choice questions divided by chapter (you will get immediate feedback for them - however these should be meant as a quick check of your comprehension, as nothing substitutes sweating through the exercises in the textbook).
If you are an instructor, there are plenty more thoughtful exercises in the instructor's manual. In terms of coverage, it is almost perfect for students in economics, as it covers static optimisation (unconstrained, constrained with both equality and inequality constraints), a bit of linear algebra and linear programming. No dynamic optimization here, as for that you will need Further Mathematics for Economic Analysis.
Be warned however: this is not a mathematical economics textbook, but a text of the maths needed for economics and the social sciences. So there are a number of economic applications (e.g. cost functions and profit functions are used in exercises, and you are shown the connection between logarithmic derivatives and elasticity), but this in not a "baby" version of e.g. Foundations of Mathematical Economics.
It is packed with exercises, with solutions available either at the end of the book or in the student's manual, and there is also a companion website to keep you entartained with multiple choice questions divided by chapter (you will get immediate feedback for them - however these should be meant as a quick check of your comprehension, as nothing substitutes sweating through the exercises in the textbook).
If you are an instructor, there are plenty more thoughtful exercises in the instructor's manual. In terms of coverage, it is almost perfect for students in economics, as it covers static optimisation (unconstrained, constrained with both equality and inequality constraints), a bit of linear algebra and linear programming. No dynamic optimization here, as for that you will need Further Mathematics for Economic Analysis.
Be warned however: this is not a mathematical economics textbook, but a text of the maths needed for economics and the social sciences. So there are a number of economic applications (e.g. cost functions and profit functions are used in exercises, and you are shown the connection between logarithmic derivatives and elasticity), but this in not a "baby" version of e.g. Foundations of Mathematical Economics.
April 2, 2022
Very useful resource for a basic Math for Econs module. Explains concepts not elaborated on in class well.
February 7, 2026
The book itself is well-structured and provides good examples and intuition along with comprehensive answers and resources such as the student manual. I did however find there were questions which were unnecessarily rife with excessive algebra that often the conceptual understanding got lost in the moving parts -- I do however understand this is a skill. Overall, this book is a great undergraduate resource which makes mathematics less intimidating for the student.
December 31, 2024
#nsreads 66
Reaffirms my hunch that econs textbooks are the best place to learn applied math save vector calculus where physics textbook maintain comparative advantage
Reaffirms my hunch that econs textbooks are the best place to learn applied math save vector calculus where physics textbook maintain comparative advantage
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews