Intermediate Microeconomics

Reading order

1. Microeconomics

   Michael Parkin Beginner

   A principles-level microeconomics textbook that teaches the core models of markets through carefully built graphs, worked examples and current news stories. It moves from scarcity, opportunity cost and supply and demand to consumer and firm decisions, market structures and market failure, giving students a complete first course in how economists analyse choices and markets.

   Prerequisites: No previous economics is required; high-school algebra and the ability to read simple graphs are enough.

2. Microeconomics: A Very Short Introduction

   Avinash Dixit Beginner

   A compact, non-technical introduction to microeconomics by a leading economic theorist. It explains how households and firms make decisions, how markets bring those decisions together, and why markets sometimes fail, using everyday examples from many countries, simple graphs and almost no mathematics.

   Prerequisites: None; the book assumes no previous study of economics and uses only simple diagrams.

3. Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach

   Hal R. Varian; Marc Melitz Intermediate

   An intermediate textbook that develops consumer and producer theory, market equilibrium and strategic behaviour with clear graphical reasoning and only modest calculus. The tenth edition adds Marc Melitz as co-author, refreshing examples and problems while keeping Varian's approach of building each topic from a small set of optimisation ideas.

   Prerequisites: A principles course plus comfortable algebra; single-variable calculus is helpful but most of the text is accessible without it.

4. Microeconomics

   Robert Pindyck; Daniel L. Rubinfeld Intermediate

   An intermediate microeconomics textbook that develops consumer and producer theory, market structure, strategic behaviour and market failure mainly through graphs and verbal reasoning, with algebra and optional calculus appendices. Each topic is tied to worked applications drawn from business decisions, regulation and public policy.

   Prerequisites: A principles of economics course and comfortable use of algebra and graphs are expected; calculus helps with the appendices but is not required for the main text.

5. Models in Microeconomic Theory: Expanded Second Edition (She)

   Martin J. Osborne; Ariel Rubinstein Intermediate Open access

   Read the official free edition ↗

   A free, proof-oriented microeconomics text using precise models of choice, markets and equilibrium with mostly elementary mathematics.

   Prerequisites: Be comfortable with sets, functions, elementary algebra and sustained logical reasoning. Prior introductory microeconomics helps connect formal definitions to economic questions; little calculus is used.

6. Advanced Microeconomic Theory

   Geoffrey A. Jehle; Philip J. Reny Advanced

   A rigorous graduate textbook covering the core of microeconomic theory. Jehle and Reny develop consumer and producer theory, competitive and general equilibrium, social choice, game theory, information economics and mechanism design from explicit assumptions, with proofs and a self-contained mathematical appendix.

   Prerequisites: Intermediate microeconomics and multivariable calculus are assumed; some linear algebra and real analysis help.

7. Microeconomic Theory

   Andreu Mas-Colell; Michael D. Whinston; Jerry R. Green Advanced

   A first-year graduate text in microeconomic theory, offering a rigorous and comprehensive treatment of individual choice, game theory, market equilibrium, general equilibrium and welfare economics with incentives. The exposition states results formally and proves most of them, while extensive exercises extend the theory and connect it to research.

   Prerequisites: Multivariable calculus, linear algebra and real analysis at the level of a mathematics-for-economists course, plus intermediate microeconomics.