Economics of social problems

Abstract

The book has its origins in a course taught to first-year undergraduate social science students at the University of Sussex. Although some of them were prospective economics majors, the rest either had no background in economics or were not going on any further in the subject. The aim of the course was to introduce them to some of the distinctive features of economic methods of analysis through the study of a range of contemporary social problems. It was our deliberate intention to move away from the mor-e abstract theoretical approach that was a common feature of many introductory economic courses at the time, and instead to try to provide a course which emphasised 'learning-by-doing' through the simultaneous development of a body of theory and its application. The success of the course prompted us to try to do something similar for a wider audience by writing this book.