Economic Analysis of Social Issues

Key Features

• Includes coverage of the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic
• Active Learning. Sixteen chapters are accompanied by experiments in which students can participate under the principle that “What students do, they remember.” Each experiment places students in a scenario where they have to make individual decisions that may lead to poor collective outcomes. For example, in the “Judge Me Not” experiment, each student assumes the role of a producer who can choose polluting technology or clean technology. Individual incentives encourage each producer to choose polluting technology. The collective outcome is a welfare-destroying volume of pollution that drives up everyone’s health care costs.
• Data Projects. The macroeconomics chapters are each accompanied by a data analysis project that introduces students to macro data and how different macroeconomic variables are linked.
• Critical Thinking Skills. Students are encouraged to use their economist toolkit to analyze social problems rather than simply memorizing facts or learning graphical or mathematical models that will soon be forgotten.
• Engaging Coverage of Important Social Issues. Simple tools are applied to a broad class of social problems such as pollution, health care, the depletion of natural resources, and business cycles. Graphical analysis is presented simply and is applied sparingly.
• Supportive Chapter Learning Structure
  • “Learning Objectives” lay out the key ideas to be discussed in the following main section.
  • “Key Terms” highlight important concepts and terminology in a running, marginal glossary.
  • “Applications” reinforce key ideas with compelling and current real-world examples. Each application is matched to an accompanying problem that can be used to generate in-class discussions or can be included in assignments.
  • “People Behind the Theory” vignettes appear in many chapters and explore the people and personalities behind the important economic ideas that have shaped the discipline.
  • “Key Takeaways” at the end of each main section summarize key ideas in bullet-point fashion. Key Takeaways enable the learner to pause and consolidate the information just read. This process enables the reader to better understand and retain the chapter’s content and its key concepts.
  • “Conclusion” sections reflect on what’s been learned already and set the stage for future topics.
  • “Review Questions” reinforce recall and learning and encourage students to apply concepts.
  • “Problems and Applications” encourage critical analysis of issues related to chapter content.