Reviewer: A reader
I am writing my PhD dissertation in Economics. I was first assigned this book almost 10 years ago during my second year undergraduate course in mathematics for economists. This book has then kept resurfacing, for instance in the summer course in math that preceded my master. Actually, I quite dislike the book. Lukily, I was given the choice between this book and Simon&Blume and I chose the latter. I unfortunately bought Chang first and started studying this becuase it was the "preferred text". It turns out that Chang tries to make it too easy. It's great when books make the subject easy, and I abhor formalism for its own sake, but when you have to wade through pages and pages of bubbling and exercises to find out what the chapter is all about, then it is too sloppy. Please have nicely stated assumption, theorem, nicely worked out examples and explanations. No! Chang thinks that it is better to work out for you tons of examples without bothering to put it all together in a nice statement. I get lost in this! Too easy is wrongly easy, if the text book omit to clearly state all the assumptions (because it would be too difficult) you can be sure that my profs put a tricky case in the exam in which the assumptions are violated and you don't know what to do, because Chang never stated them, nor bothered to solve that specific case - or maybe he did solve that case but it got lost among the others.
Have a look at the table of content. The first half of the book is appropriate for a first undergraduate course in mathematics for economists, and the second half for a second course. It won't lead you much further than that. Most masters will require you to learn at least hamiltonians (but that's easy). True problem is that this book does not really give you good basis for thinking mathematically in graduate school.
[此贴子已经被作者于2005-4-23 10:45:51编辑过]
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