OpenStax: Principles of Macroeconomics 2e
Welcome to Economics
Chapter 1
MobLab Surveys: Basic Economic Principles and Basic Economic Thinking
Key Teaching Points:
- Introduces students to the basic principles of economics, such as opportunity cost, the circular flow diagram, and the production possibilities frontier.
Choice in a World of Scarcity
Chapter 2
MobLab Survey: Micro: Consumer Choice*
Key Teaching Points:
- Introduces students to the budget constraint, utility maximization, and income and substitution effects.
MobLab Game: Consumer Choice: Cobb Douglas
Key Teaching Points:
- Allows students to gain familiarity with the Cobb Douglas utility function and the concept of marginal utility.
Demand and Supply
Chapter 3
MobLab Game: Competitive Market (Continuous Double Auction)
Key Teaching Points:
- Teaches students about the building blocks of supply, demand, and equilibrium.
- Offers many key treatment variations, such as price controls, taxes, and subsidies.
Labor and Financial Markets
Chapter 4
MobLab Game: Simple Labor Market
Key Teaching Points:
- Allows students to experience a labor market and how it determines the equilibrium wage.
- Offers the option to implement unemployment policies, such as a minimum wage.
MobLab Game: Interest Rates and Inflation
Key Teaching Points:
- Introduces students to a competitive financial market and how it determines the equilibrium interest rate.
Elasticity
Chapter 5
MobLab Module: Elasticity
Key Teaching Points:
- Teaches students about elasticity when the supply or demand curve shifts by taking students through a pre-made learning loop of surveys and games.
The Macroeconomic Perspective
Chapter 6
MobLab Survey: Macro: National Accounts (GDP)
Key Teaching Points:
- Introduces students to the expenditure method of calculating GDP and the difference between real GDP and nominal GDP.
Economic Growth
Chapter 7
MobLab Survey: Macro: Growth
Key Teaching Points:
- Introduces students to the macro production function, diminishing returns, and other topics found in growth chapters of principles textbooks.
Unemployment
Chapter 8
MobLab Survey: Macro: Unemployment
Key Teaching Points:
- Teaches students about a variety of topics relating to unemployment in principles of macroeconomics courses, such as the types of unemployment and how to calculate the unemployment rate.
Inflation
Chapter 9
MobLab Survey: Macro: Measuring Inflation
Key Teaching Points:
- Introduces students to the costs of inflation, how to interpret the CPI, and how to calculate the CPI.
MobLab Game: Interest Rates & Inflation
Key Teaching Points:
- Allows for key treatment variations, such as unexpected inflation, to teach students about the cost of unexpected inflation and its impact on financial markets.
International Trade and Capital Flows
Chapter 10
MobLab Survey: Macro: Savings and Investment
Key Teaching Points:
- Introduces students to the relationship between savings, interest rates, and investment.
Aggregate Demand/Aggregate Supply Model
Chapter 11
MobLab Survey: Macro: AD and AS
Key Teaching Points:
- Tests student understanding of the factors that affect aggregate demand and supply.
The Keynesian Perspective
Chapter 12
MobLab Survey: Macro: Inflation/Unemployment Tradeoff
Key Teaching Points:
- Introduces students to the Phillips curve and the role of expectations in the relationship between inflation and unemployment.
Money and Banking
Chapter 14
MobLab Survey: Macro: Money and Banking
Key Teaching Points:
- Covers the definition of money, how to interpret a bank t-account, and the money multiplier.
Monetary Policy and Bank Regulation
Chapter 15
MobLab Game: Bank Run
Key Teaching Points:
- Introduces students to bank runs and the importance of deposit insurance in the banking system.
Exchange Rates and International Capital Flows
Chapter 16
MobLab Surveys: Macro: Open Economy 1 and Macro: Open Economy 2
Key Teaching Points:
- Covers the relationship between net foreign savings and net exports, factors that impact domestic currency, and purchasing power parity.
Government Budgets and Fiscal Policy
Chapter 17
MobLab Survey: Macro: Monetary and Fiscal Policy
Key Teaching Points:
- Introduces students to the various monetary policy tools and fiscal policy tools and their respective effects.
International Trade
Chapter 20
MobLab Survey: Micro: Gains from Trade*
Key Teaching Points:
- Introduces students to comparative and absolute advantage and the relationship between trade and comparative advantage.
MobLab Game: Comparative Advantage*
Key Teaching Points:
- Allows students to experience the gains from trade that stem from differences in opportunity cost.
- Offers two key treatment variations: with trade or without trade.
Globalization and Protectionism
Chapter 21
MobLab Survey: Micro: International Trade*
Key Teaching Points:
- Introduces students to the effects of international trade on the domestic market, as well as the effects of tariffs and quotas.
*Applicable for both Micro and Macro courses.