Microeconomic Theory: A Heterodox Approach

Microeconomic Theory: A Heterodox Approach develops a heterodox economic theory that explains the economy as the social provisioning process at the micro level. Heterodox microeconomics explores the economy with a focus on its constituent parts and their reproduction and recurrence, their integration qua interdependency by non-market and market arrangements and institutions, and how the system works as a whole.

This book deals with three theoretical concerns. Due to the significance of the price mechanism to mainstream economics, a theoretical concern of the book is the business enterprise, markets, demand, and pricing. Also, since heterodox economists see private investment, consumption and government expenditures as the principal directors and drivers of economic activity, a second theoretical concern is business decision-making processes regarding investment and production, government expenditure decisions, the financing of investment, the profit mark-up and the wage rate, and taxes. Finally, the third theoretical concern of the book is the delineation of a non-equilibrium disaggregated price-output model of the social provisioning process.

This book explores the integration of these various theories with a theoretical model of the economy and how this forms a theory that can be identified as heterodox microeconomics. It will be of interest to both postgraduates and researchers.

Frederic S. Lee was Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA until he died in 2014. He played an essential role in developing heterodox microeconomic theory and in building a global community of heterodox economists over his thirty-year professional career. He was the founding editor of Heterodox Economics Newsletter (2004–2009) and the editor of American Journal of Economics and Sociology (2009–2013). Lee published over 172 journal articles, book chapters, and books, including Post Keynesian Price Theory (1998), A History of Heterodox Economics (2009), and Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Heterodox Economics (2016).

Tae-Hee Jo is Associate Professor of Economics at the State University of New York – Buffalo State, USA.