NEW MEMBER

[kudos Babington]

Hello Everybody I am a new member here a Student of economics 200L can anyone help me out about how to build a perfect career in economics and also recommend some text books for me.

Basically I have problem in understanding economics mathematics can anyone also help me out on this

Thank u

Kudos Babington

[Spencer Thompson]

As an undergraduate you'll never be expected to read heavily theoretical 'wonkish' economics papers, but if you want to understand them eventually (at a graduate level and beyond), you should get your finger in the wonkish pie early on, so to speak.
I used Ian Jacques to learn mathematical economics. It's perhaps a bit too simple but is a good introduction. A bit better is Geoff Renshaw's book. Much better is Alpha C. Chiang's book 'fundamental methods of mathematical economics' which is really comprehensive, but perhaps a bit tough as an introduction. The main things to cover initially are calculus and linear algebra. A good textbook to get you up to speed with basic algebra is "teach yourself algebra" by Paul Abbott and Hugh Neill.
I can't speak for econometrics as I haven't studied it yet! But as preparation I took two statistics courses last year, I reccomend Michael Barrow's statistics for economists book (he's also one of my lecturers so maybe I'm biased), although this maybe slightly too basic, as it doesn't cover areas such as non-parametric tests and others. I imagine jumping straight into econometrics would be tough without a grounding in regular statistics, but again I haven't started econometrics yet.
I'm not entirely sure what 'Randy HK' means by 'philosophical economics'. Obviously as an economics student you will be studying Micro and Macro theory, and this is important for professional economics. In my experience these courses haven't been too technical, but it depends on the university.
Also read blogs written by academic economists, the economist magazine is alright too. Watch the news, try and analyse the world around you through an economics perspective. I try and stay away from popular economics books written by journalists like 'the undercover economics' or even 'freakonomics'', as they aren't aimed at economics students. Better books to read are histories of economics (the Galbraith one is pretty good) and popular books by serious economists like Krugman, Schiller and others. But mainly for bedtime reading!!!
Hope this helps

[Randy HK]

I would recommend you read philosophical economics (theories of capitalism, communism) that way what the numbers represent will connect and make more sense to you.

[Richard Ward]

Essential Mathematics for Economics and Business by Teresa Bradley is a good starting point. Mathematics for Economcis and Business by Ian Jacques is ok but doesn't have as many examples.

Introductory Econometrics by Jeffrey Wooldridge is a stanard text for most introductory courses. I also found A Guide to Modern Econometrics by Marno Verbeek to be extremely informative. It also has a great section on writing an econometric project. Textbooks like Greene and Maddala are great for more advanced econometrics.

[Nick Gerli]

I am a young economics student as well and when I attempt to read wonkish papers I am often lost in the midst of all the econometric riff raff.

Would anyone be able to reccomend a good Econometrics 101 book, or a web site maybe? I have yet to take the course in school but I think this would be a nice head start.