Mathematics for Economists

This book has a special please for me. I found it to be well written and is the best book about math for economists at undergraduate level. The book was in excelent condition too

I majored in Math, so, based on the title of the book, I figured that I'd never need it when I started taking PhD-level economics courses. How wrong I was. Many of the topics that are the bread-and-butter of mathematical economics (concavity and convexity, Kuhn-Tucker optimization) simply never came up in my undergraduate courses. This book explained them clearly and intuitively.If you're starting graduate studies in economics, then I'd also strongly recommend Sundaram's A First Course in Optimization Theory. Its subject matter is mostly a subset of Mathematics for Economists, but optimization an often-tricky topic that you'll need to master.

This book gives great outlook on the derivatives. I had many math bookS but this one has that right combination of words that puts calculus in your brain just the way you need it.I tried chiang's math fundamentals as well and that book is great if you literally know nothing about math. This book just what you need if you already know some basic math. Well if you remember what is a proper subset this book is exactly what you need.

So far, I don't have many qualms with this book. It seems to fairly easily and in understandable terms teach economic math. However, after reading the first few chapters I have noticed the book expects a considerable established knowledge of math, especially notation. Without that introduction, it might be difficult for a reader to quickly read through the text. The second issue: the book might be improved by some real-world examples and anecdotes, which are more prevalent in modern textbooks. Lastly, the book can come off as a "wall-of-text", which some readers might find unappealing; a characteristic that has also changed with new iterations of textbooks. Other than that, worth the relatively small price tag.

I purchased this book on the recommendation of one of my Ph.D. program professors who likes it better than de la Fuente's book. I agree that it's better than Fuente, but that's not saying much. Simon and Blume wrote the book for people who not only already know mathematical economics, but who also think fluently in mathematics. It's not for the beginning Ph.D. candidate in economics, but for the accomplished professor. If you already know the material, I suspect that Simon and Blume will allow you to quickly reference any of the topics it covers. If you're struggling to learn mathematical economics, however, don't try to use this book because it will reinforce any fears you might have about your ability to learn the subject in the first place.

A good chunk of this textbook can be understood in isolation, but many of the lessons move too quickly to avoid the need for supplemental lessons from other sources. Many of the sections build on earlier sections, so it's tough to just use as needed if you don't first understand more basic calculus, linear algebra...etc.

It's not a bad book, it will cover everything you will ever need for economics. The only downside of the book is that you kind of have to already know what it is you want to do in order to use the book. If you don't know how to do something, this is not the book for you. If you know what you are looking for though, like maximizing a constrained function with Lagrange multipliers, then it is easy to use the book. If all you know is that you want to optimize something, start somewhere else. The book makes topics overly complicated.

I bought this as a required textbook for my first year PhD course, am loving it as it has rich content of mathematical foundation!