Lecture Notes and Short Texts in Principles of Macroeconomics
"An introduction to the historical origins and economic analysis of public debt. It helps students to understand the connections between debt and deficits, analyze debt sustainability, and consider the economic and political challenges of public debt management." Stand-alone text with downloadable Excel simulations, recommended exercises, and occasional self-test questions, plus cross-references to the CORE textbooks.
Self-contained chapter "about the meaning, measurement, and implications of economic inequality". Text with exercises for the reader, interactive self-test questions, plus cross-references to the CORE textbooks.
"Looks at what happened during the global financial crisis and how regulatory reforms since then aim to address the problems that arise when banks become too big to be allowed to fail." Stand-alone text with interactive graphs and occasional self-test questions, plus cross-references to the CORE textbooks.
"Explains how the US Department of Treasury finances government spending and how the US Federal Reserve System conducts monetary policy both during times of normalcy and during economic crises." Stand-alone text with interactive graphs and occasional self-test questions, plus cross-references to the CORE textbooks.
New School Economic Review (NSER) is a student-run economics journal and blog that is free to access. The blog discusses topical economic issues in relation to articles that appear in the journal Issues of particular concern include: political economy, development, trade, philosophy of economics, and macroeconomics.
This short essay uses quotes from "The Logic of Collective Action" by Mancur Olson to explain in simple terms why government can be expected to make decisions that harm the economy. It introduces the concept of the different marginal effect of participation in small and large groups.
This short essay makes a case in simple terms that tariffs hurt the economy of the country that imposes them as well as the economies of the countries they are imposed on.
This website supports the textbook Macroeconomics in Context by Goodwin et al. It combines mainstream macroeconomic principles with environmental and social considerations, considering alternatives to the conventional GDP measure. Sample chapters are available, along with student study guides for each chapter and lecture slides.
This is a set of hyperlinked mindmaps, including textual notes, images and hyperlinks, starting with Economic Environment of business. Reading the files requires the free MindManager viewer software, which is available for a variety of platforms. Previews of a couple of mind maps are available as PDFs, with reduced functionality.
The Economics Briefs document of The Economist's site includes short introductions to six ideas: Akerlof's Market for Lemons, Minsky's Financial Cycle, the Stolper-Samelson Theorem, the Keynesian Multiplier, the Nash equilibrium, and the Mundell-Fleming Trilemma.
This is a free and open set of course materials released by the Saylor Foundation, an educational charity, under a CC-BY licence, having been reviewed by three subject-matter experts. It is based on other free resources including Khan Academy videos. The material is arranged into ten units, each with readings, video and in some cases assessment materials.
A lay primer on inequality in the form of 14 "cards", introducing the Lorentz curve and Gini coefficient, general drivers of inequality, and some trends in inequality since the 2008 crash. It touches on a variety of perspectives and approaches to measurement, with links to academic papers for further information. Published in 2014 and updated in 2015.
Economystified was a blog, updated weekly from December 2010 to the Summer of 2014. Each post discusses an economic issue, an economist, or a principle of economic theory, aimed at a lay audience.
A US-focused introduction to inflation and its measurement, presented by a journalist in a question-and-answer format. Published in 2014.
Ask Dr. Econ is an educational resource that answers questions on (mostly macro) economic issues by a Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco economist: the answer-bank is searchable by category or keyword. Answers are detailed, generally at introductory level. Examples: Does inflation hurt long-term growth? What are business cycles and how do they affect the economy? Why does a trade deficit weaken the currency? The service ran from 1998 until 2013.
121-page PDF created for an introductory course at Oxford. The chapters are "The Long Run and the Classical Model", "The AD Curve and the IS-LM Model", "The AS Curve and the Labour Market", "The Open Economy", and "Macroeconomic Policy Issues".
This is a paper on the Tobin tax, considering the aims and effects of the tax in terms of theory and empirical results, specifically written for undergraduates. The author is Paul Ormerod of Volterra Consulting and it is reproduced by the Economics Network with permission.
This introductory course in Macroeconomics includes the topics of inflation, unemployment, business cycles, gross domestic product, money, fiscal policy, and monetary policy. There are 20 lessons on macroeconomic basics, broken up into small chunks of text. The AmosWorld site also includes a glossary and an online testing system, to which this material is linked.
The files here are 16 short, explanatory essays to accompany Mankiw's Macroeconomics textbook. Readings include "Some simple math facts", "Two versions of Okun's law", "Theories of debt burden", and "The slope of the LM curve and automatic stabilization". Past exams from Woglom's course are also here. This link is to Archive.org's copy of the Spring 2000 site.
This site combines text, images and online quizzes into a survey of the classical and neoclassical paradigms of macroeconomics. It contains a number of interactive quizzes and simulations, as well as, some short text articles on a range of topics.
MBA lectures in macroeconomics by Nouriel Roubini, David Backus includes the text of 10 lectures from 1998, including graphs. The three main sections are "Overview of the World Economy", "The Classical Theory of the Long-Run" and "The Keynesian Theory of the Short-Run". The lectures are aimed at MBA students.
A complete book of nearly 900 pages, dating from 1993, with contributions from authors including Thomas Sargent, Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Schelling, Paul Krugman, and N. Greg Mankiw. The structure covers basic topics, areas of application and ends with some short biographies of economists.
A collection of short, accessible articles introducing economic concepts including economic efficiency, tariffs, arc elasticity, externalities, and efficiency wages. Authors include Jodi Beggs (Northeastern University) and Mike Moffat (Richard Ivey School of Business).
