Invitation to Economics empowers the reader to spot naive and spurious economic arguments by inculcating an intuitive 'feel' for economics.

• A unique and critical guide to understanding economic arguments in the media
• Focuses on microeconomics, specifically on the idea that economic policies often have important indirect effects
• Key ideas are applied repeatedly in numerous case studies drawn from newspapers and other media
• Economic principles are presented in an accessible and non-rigorous format using case studies
• Incorporates the value judgments and political judgments that underlie economic policies

Thomas Mayer is Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of California, Davis. He has also taught at Notre Dame University and Michigan State University, and as a visitor at West Virginia University and the University of California, Berkeley. He has written numerous articles in professional journals, and is the author or co-author of eight previous books. In 1978 he served as president of the Western Economic Association and in 1978-79 as chairman of the International Network for Economic Method, and has served on the editorial boards of several professional journals.