Drawing on a personal network, an economist can still relatively easily stay well informed in the narrow field in which he works, but to keep up with the development of economics as a whole is a much more formidable challenge. Economists are confronted with difficulties associated with the rapid development of their discipline. There is a risk of “balkanization” in economics, which may not be favorable to its development.
Fundamentals of Pure and Applied Economics has been created to meet this problem. The discipline of economics has been subdivided into sections (listed at the back of this volume). These sections comprise short books, each surveying the state of the art in a given area.
Each book starts with the basic elements and goes as far as the most advanced results. Each should be useful to professors needing material for lectures, to graduate students looking for a global view of a particular subject, to professional economists wishing to keep up with the development of their science, and to researchers seeking convenient information on questions that incidentally appear in their work.
Each book is thus a presentation of the state of the art in a particular field rather than a step-by-step analysis of the development of the literature. Each is a high-level presentation but accessible to anyone with a solid background in economics, whether engaged in business, government, international organizations, teaching, or research in related fields.
Three aspects of Fundamentals of Pure and Applied Economics should be emphasized:
— First, the project covers the whole field of economics, not only theoretical or mathematical economics.
— Second, the project is open-ended and the number of books is not predetermined. If new and interesting areas appear, they will generate additional books.
— Last, all the books making up each section will later be grouped to constitute one or several volumes of an Encyclopedia of Economics.
The editors of the sections are outstanding economists who have selected as authors for the series some of the finest specialists in the world.
J. Lesourne |
H. Sonnenschein |