Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book
Review: To AL SNOW: Please read Milton Friedman "The Methodology of Positive Economics"--that should clarify for you the issues concerning unrealism of assumptions, and Gary Becker "The Economic Approach to Human Behavior"--that should clarify for you the relevance of economics for understanding the real world. By the way, there is not a single equation in either of the articles, don't worry!As for MWG, I think the book is excellent. It is correct that the book is quite technical but hey, if you have come up to the point where you want to study advanced microeconomics, you should be afraid of anything but mathematics. So if you find reading the books difficult, my advice is learn first the necessary math (Jehle and Reny provides a good review) and then read MWG because you will learn a lot once you are able to handle the technical stuff. For instance, the section on general equilibrium is truly superb!
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Summary: Mix-and-Match in Microeconomic Theory
Review: To compare with the other two outstanding,but different in style, Kreps and Varian, this book is on the middle of the two. Kreps is chatter-box but intuitive style. Kreps is very good for anyone who wants the logic of microeconomic theory but may be weak in mathematics. If you want to be a theoryist, the logic is important .Varian is very terse but concisely present the microeconomic theory in mathematical form. It is good for who uses mathematics as a language. That is why MWG is a big book. MWG is great in presentation of intuition and mathematic language. It also provides many proofs of theories in crucial parts of microeconomics. Exercises are ranged from reviewing the idea in each chapter to proving the theory and application. (The solution manual is avilable but for instructor only. Ask your professor!) MWG composes of many major parts. The first is Consumer and Producer Theory. This part well presents mixtures of the intuition and mathematics. The weakness is on the producer theory (chapter 4). Presentation of general idea but lack of a deep considerations. Varian (chapters 1-6) is more rigorous and concise. The consumer theory is great (ranging from choice theory to demands, duality and others) On the next part, Game theory, MWG presents major topics in game theory with variety. Of course, MWG is better than Varian in Game but may be worse than Kreps. I prefer Kreps personally. (Of course, Kreps is great in Game theory). Varian provides only skeleton (I think only ribs and head, no arms and legs). MWG is good for introduction to theory but weak in intuition. On the IO part, MWG and Kreps have done a beautiful job. MWG contains more mathematics and proof but if you want to use Tirole's Theory of IO, you would like to read Kreps because MWG put the content of Tirole into this part. Varian is weak in IO part. On the information economics, the complete set is in MWG but intuition is better in Kreps. MGW provides many formal representation. It provides concise content of topics (If you need only the information economics, read Chapter 6 and jump to Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard). Varian is still weak in this part. On the general competitive equilibrium, Kreps is weak here. The complete of GE is MWG. Prof Mas-colell is great in GE and this book provides the beauty of his work. It's impressive to read from MWG. Varian provides concisely but completes in topics. If you have no time, read Varian. But if you want to be an expert in GE, read MWG. For welfare economics, MWG contains the necessary content that is hard to find elsewhere. It is great to read from this first before jump to other specialized texts. Kreps and Varian lack of this part. From my experience, it might be suffering to read MWG for the first time (because of the math used here).You might need the second book to gain intuition (that is why I compare MWG with Kreps and Varian). But it would yield considerable outcome if you keep this track. You will gain almost every topics in microeconomics. I didn't provide content. I hope you can skim those books in your library. My suggestion is 1) If you want more intuitions (less math or you are weak in math), MWG and Kreps are appropriate. 2) If you want more math (you are strong in mathematical language or have less time), MWG and Varian are appropriate. Anyways I think MWG is the core of Microeconomics theory text. Enjoy Reading...
Rating:
Summary: Yes, this is economics
Review: I'm not sure what the complaints below are about; after all, it was Andreu Mas-Colell who, in 1974, proved the existence of a competitive equilibrium after _dropping_ the axioms of completeness and transitivity of consumer preferences. Sounds like somebody didn't read the book.
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Summary: This is Economics????
Review: Some of the positives reviews of this book are correct on one point: you don't need undergraduate economics to understand the book. Of course, one can further say that no knowledge of economics at all is necessary to understand this book. But then what is this book about? Economics is usually defined as "the study of how scarce resources are allocated between competing ends." But, this is not what this book or even what modern day economics is about. This book/modern economics is really an exercise in mathematical gymnastics. You will learn what economists do, but gain no insight into how the economy works (ie. what actions people on the planet earth do in order to maximize their well being) What you will learn is that economics is a junk science. Take one of "fundemental assumptions" of microeconomics theory: preferences are complete. Completes means that a person knows the satisfaction s/he receives from every single bundle of goods available and will be available in the future. Introspection quickly reveals that this assumption is false, nobody has such knowledge of the world around them. In a real science a hypothesis/assumption that is proved to be false is discarded. In economics this does not occur. Why? Because they need the assumption to do the math. A preference relation needs to be complete in order to be represented by a utility function (ie. no completeness=no ability to solve constrained optimization problems). And why is this math used? The math is used, via the social planner proposition, to show how resources SHOULD be allocated between competing ends, but then that's not what economics is supposed to be about, right? If anybody can prove me wrong I would welcome it, for I have completely lost my faith in the economics discipline.
Rating:
Summary: A terrible text for learning Price Theory
Review: If you need a reference that includes it all, in terms of Price Theory content, then maybe Mas Colell is for you. However, if you want to learn and understand Price Theory, this book will probably just frustrate you. All the math and models are there, but none of the verbal discussion one needs to really learn a subject. In my admittidely small sample, professors like the book because it's mathematically rigorous and complete, but students hate it because they really want to learn, and this book doesn't help.
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Summary: it's like the bible - in the original Greek
Review: Currently we are suffering through the endless notation and mind-blowing exercises in "elementary math" (yeah, right!)that comprise the chapters of MWG. To be fair, MWG does indeed give a complete overview of microeconomic theory. However, if you had an insufficient background in math (aka less than a Master's degree) it can be difficult (more truthfully: impossible) to pull out the intuitive concepts from the overwhelmingly mathy definitions. You will definately need a (more than) competent instructor to lead you through the quagmire that is MWG.
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Summary: The right way of thinking in Economics
Review: It must be true that some concepts and proofs in this book could be out of reach from some people that does not has the technical initiation on the area, but as anyone has pointed before it is not necesary for readers to check out all the proofs to understand the nontechnical or basic ideas behind theorems. Since Samuelson, mathematics and statistics tools becomes an indispensable way of proving and advancing in Economics at all because its a thruthfully way of avoiding everybody saying whatever they want. Mas-Collel et. al. made a wonderful job on Microeconomics, and everybody who makes serious studies in areas related with Economics must agree with me that it is a unvaluable tool for understanding and thinking in the right way. This book is an obligated reference for them.
Rating:
Summary: Undoubtedly, THE book for first year PhD students
Review: I had heard a lot about this book before I began to read it for the first time as a requirement for my PhD sequence. My own opinion is that this has to be easily the most comprehensive and informative book in its class. I do not think one needs an extremely sound math background to be able to understand this book- undergraduate math to the extent of vector calculus and simple set theory is more than adequate. All other mathematical concepts are explained clearly and concisely in the appendices, far better than by any classroom instructor. It is possible to master this book without ever having done economics at the intermediate level (as in my case). At times the notation seems a little heavy but it just takes a little getting used to- as is natural considering that this book is streets ahead of Varian's poor offering. It also requires time and dedication, and I suspect that people who find the book unsatisfactory did not posess the diligence or patience to read certain sections more than once. Part 1 is absolutely superb- demand theory, choice, production. Game Theory is covered far more extensively than I have seen anywhere else. Some parts of General Equilibrium Theory may seem a little abstruse, but nothing that a smart Graduate student cannot figure out. I strongly recommend that you buy this book, and read it thoroughly- it will be of immense benefit.
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Summary: Monumental Blunder
Review: "Microeconomic Theory" is encyclopedic in its treatment of modern price theory. Consequently, It stands as a towering monument to everything that is wrong with modern microeconomics. Virtually, every topic in this book centers around equilibrium concepts that economists borrowed from Newtonian mechanics over a century ago. Institutions matter little in this view of the world, and processes virtually disappear. This text also falls short in explaining the importance of subjectivity, particularly in costs. This text focuses heavily on market failures, but pays little attention to the literature on transactions costs. The authors have little to say about government failure, aside from their highly technical and poorly explained presentation of the Arrow Impossibility Theorem. on the The Authors do include a considerable amount of game theory, but they do little to explain game theoretic concepts. While their failure to explain usefull game theoretic concepts is unfortunate, the lack of verbal explanation in this book is its greatest strength. The fewer who understand this brand of "economics" the better. If you absolutely must read this for a class, try to innoculate yourself by reading some articles by Demsetz, Hayek, and Buchannan first.
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Summary: first year graduate textbook in economics
Review: This is the typical first year graduate text book in economics. It is target for this audience and it will probably not be very useful to you if you are not in academia. Intermediate to advanced undergraduate could find the book useful provided that they meet the mathematical requirements (more on this below). As it is a first year grad book, it tries to cover all the topics in microeconomics rather than going in depth in any of them. If you go on studying micro, this book will not be enough for your field of concentration. A last word for first year graduate student whose course adopt a different text book (Varian, Kreps...). It probably worth sticking to your own book rather than buying this one hoping to understand from MWG what you don't get from Varian or Kreps. I tried the reverse process and I miserably failed: notation and exposition are very different; bridging the gap between two books requires too much work. Now to the mathematical question. Before even starting you should know at least derivatives and matrices. And again, if you are a grad student, you must know them. I think you can read most of the book knowing "only" the following theorems: kuhn-tucker, implicit function, separating hyperplane, fixed point, envelope theorem. This topics are briefly dealt with in the appendix. If you have time it might worth to master these theorems before reading the book, at least kuhn-tucker! As three authors contributed to the book the clarity (and the depth) varies A LOT among chapters. I will now review the chapters that I studied in depth: ch. 1,2,3,4 preferences, choice and demand: clear and comprehensive 4 stars ch. 5 production: worst chapter in the book, unclear, no stars. ch. 6 uncertainty: very clear, but barely scratches the surface of the topic: 3 stars ch. 7, 8, 9 game theory: clear, medium depth: 4 stars ch. 13, 14 adverse selection, signalling, principal agency: best chapters in the book, very clear, and medium depth 5 stars.
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