Book excerpt: This book presents a scientific and systematic development of the under-lying concepts of microeconomics with due emphasis on analytical and mathematical treatment, much needed for an application orientation of mind, to help students in understanding and tackling the real-world problems. The book is organized into nine chapters. The first chapter is devoted to price-output decisions of a monopoly. It provides a comprehensive account of these decisions under all their manifestations in a systematic manner with illustrative sketches and mathematical explanations. Chapters 2 to 4, devoted to imperfect markets, cover monopolistic competition, duopoly and oligopoly under different situations of product pricing and quantity determination. The analysis is systematic incorporating illustrative sketches and mathematical explanations. Chapter 4 presents the sales maximization models of Baumol. Chapter 5 is devoted to factor pricing and Chapter 6 to capital and investment decisions. The former focuses on pricing of variable and fixed factors of production while the latter on intertemporal analysis and choice under uncertainty. Chapters 7 to 9, devoted to general equilibrium and market failure, analyse topics on general equilibrium and Pareto efficiency, markets with asymmetric information and externalities and public goods. This title includes: over 145 neatly drawn figures to clarify the concepts; chapter-end summaries as 'key terms and concepts' to facilitate quick revision; over 410 chapter-end short and long answer questions of numerical and analytical nature with hints, and answers as appropriate to probe the student's assimilation of the material covered; and, numerous illustrative examples throughout the text to illustrate the application of concepts.