Randy Albelda asked that I post this msg to PEN-l. Before reading her post, let me add that I am currently using this book in my Poverty and Discrimination course and the students love it. the neoclassical section is presented "straight." It is not a caricature. It is also not critiqued. The students found it infuriating. The political economy section is equally well done. At the new lower price, it would be a very good supplement to a micro intro course. Doug Orr ---------------------------------- Dear Friends, I am doing a little bit of advertising here. Last year Bob Drago, Steve Shulman and I published a textbook called _Unlevel Playing Fields: Understanding Wage Inequality and Discrimination_ with McGraw Hill. It is a paperback book that basically, in pretty readable form, lays out the neoclassical model, its theory of wage determination and treatment of discrimination. It then does the same for political economy. There is really nothing like out out there for people who like to give students a comparative exposition of economic theory and it requires virtually no background in economics. The book seems particularly useful for people who teach and are on this list. When the book first came out, McGraw Hill priced it rather high for a paperback (but not for a text) -- it cost over $30.00 in the bookstore. The book is good, but it is intended to be a supplemental text, which makes it costly for students to order our book along with several others. Some people complained to us that the price was too high and that's why they didn't use it. Well, we've (somehow, I'm not exactly sure) gotten McGraw Hill to lower the price. It now has a net price (i.e. price to book store) of $15.50, which means that bookstores will probably price the book at about $22.00 (monopoly pricing models hold!). So, if price was holding you back from using this book. It should no longer. Anyone who would like a copy of the book: go to the McGraw Hill site http://www.mhhe.com/catalogs/0070009686.mhtml, and request a review copy. Also you can find some sample chapters at http://www.uwm.edu/~drago/unlevel.html What follows is a brief blurb on the book: Unlevel Playing Fields, Understanding Wage Inequality and Discrimination (UPF) is a textbook mainly for undergraduates. It includes two major sections, one describing the "neoclassical" or standard understanding of discrimination among economists, and the other giving the "political economy" or radical explanation of discrimination. Although written by economists, the book is designed for use across a variety of courses and disciplines where issues of gender and race are central, and has been adopted in Economics, Women's Studies, Sociology, Political Science, and Human Resource Management courses. A little honesty in advertising: the book mainly sticks to male/female and black/white issues in the U.S. Thanks for your indulgence! Randy Albelda [EMAIL PROTECTED]
