Microeconomics: Markets, Methods, and Models by D. Curtis and I. Irvine provides concise yet complete coverage of introductory microeconomic theory, application and policy. The textbook begins with an explanation and development of the standard tools of analysis in the discipline and carries on to investigate the meaning of ‘well-being’ in the context of an efficient use of the economy’s resources.

An understanding of individual optimizing behaviour is developed, and this behaviour is in turn used to link household decisions on savings with firms’ decisions on production, expansion and investment. The textbook then explores behaviour in a variety of different market structures. The role of the government is examined, and the key elements in the modern theory of international trade are developed.

Opportunity cost, a global economy and behavioural responses to incentives are the dominant themes. Examples are domestic and international in their subject matter and are of the modern era.

This textbook is intended for a one-semester course, and can be used in a two-semester sequence with the companion textbook, Macroeconomics: Theory, Markets, and Policy. The three introductory chapters and the International Trade chapter (Chapter 15) are common to both textbooks.