Useful Macroeconomics is organized around three themes: economic issue history, macroeconomic data literacy and systems thinking and modelling. The first section of each chapter emphasizes the history of issues and policies in the U.S. economy. Next, the data literacy section engages students with macro data and concepts, data collection and presentation and interpretation.
In the third section of each chapter, you will see that this is not your father’s macro textbook. There are no static graphs. Students use free and friendly software to build simple dynamic simulation models on their own and build the author’s textbook model – MacroLab – one sub-model at a time. Models are presented as hypotheses (not “laws”) about economic structure and behaviour, and the text engages the students in a constructive approach to science and learning. Most chapters in the 2nd edition contain simulation experiments that emphasize how the behaviour of the model economy depends on the interaction of its key components.
The 2nd edition contains three new chapters. Chapter 9 highlights the 2000–2009 historical period that began with the “dot-com” recession and ended with the financial crisis that triggered the Great Recession. The modelling section focuses on the government sub-model. In chapter 10, we trace the contentious policy issues surrounding the slow but steady economic recovery during the second decade of the new century. The sub-models for commercial banking and the central bank are explored in this chapter. Chapter 11 brings us up-to-date historically – from the COVID-19 lockdown of the economy in 2020, through the post-pandemic inflation, to the restoration of economic prosperity by 2024. The brief but deep disruption in world trade during the pandemic provides a current-events context for exploring the “rest-of-the-world” sub-model in this chapter.
The overall approach is based on more than twenty-five years of classroom experience with both graduate and undergraduate students. Instructors have access to supplementary materials and tutorials for learning and teaching with the free Stella Online software and the MacroLab simulator.