Modern Principles: Macroeconomics has been written with trade-offs in mind and it’s easy to pick and choose from among the chapters when time constrains. We offer a few quick suggestions.

We spend more time on price controls than do other books because we don’t confine ourselves to the usual shortage diagram, but we also illustrate the general equilibrium effects of price controls. We have also included a section of advanced material on the losses from random allocation that may be skipped in larger classes or if time constrains.

Instructors could cover only a portion of the Solow model in Chapter 8. We sometimes do this in our larger classes so this will be a good choice for many. The chapter has been written so that the most intuitive and important aspects of the model are covered in the beginning, more difficult and detailed material in the middle may be skipped, and then important material on growth and ideas is covered toward the end of the chapter. The material in the middle may be skipped without loss of continuity. Instructors with smaller and more advanced classes can easily cover the full chapter. The instructor’s guide offers excellent tips from John Dawson for covering this material.

One important point: It is not at all necessary to teach the Solow model to cover our chapters on business fluctuations. The supply side is dealt with by using a long-run aggregate supply curve, which is explained in those chapters without relying on the Solow model.

We have divided the chapters in macroeconomic policy and institutions so that an instructor can cover monetary policy without covering the details of the Federal Reserve system and open market operations, and one can cover fiscal policy without covering the details of the federal budget: taxes and spending. The details are important and these chapters place monetary and fiscal policy within an institutional context so we do not necessarily recommend this approach, but when time is limited, more options are better than fewer.

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Finally, one could skip international finance. To us, international economics means primarily that economics can help us to understand the world, not just one country and not just one time. As a result, we have included many international examples throughout Modern Principles. If time constrains, the details of tariffs, exchange rates, and trade deficits may be left to another course. Alas, we live in a finite world.

Most of all, we hope that Modern Principles helps you, the teacher, to have fun! We love economics and we have fun teaching economics. We have written this text for people not afraid to say the same. Don’t hesitate to e-mail us with your questions, thoughts, and experiences, or just to say hello!

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