The Problem and the Pedagogical Approach

This textbook has had a long gestation. It began in the mid-1990s when I taught intermediate macroeconomics at the University of California, Davis. I became increasingly dissatisfied that even very good students, students who had easily mastered the textbook materials, left our program with little factual knowledge of the economy and with little ability to make the theory that they had learned helpful in interpreting real-world macroeconomic issues. Even students who received A grades in Intermediate Macroeconomics often found it difficult to understand economic news and to use sound economic analysis to criticize the economic proposals of pundits, politicians, or central bankers.

I began to rethink my course – what its objects should be and how I should teach it. Most economics majors do not go on to further graduate study in economics. The greatest value-added for the typical student would be a macroeconomic education adapted to understanding the real world as filtered through the media and politics. Even those who go on to graduate study would be better prepared to appreciate the ultimate motivation of macroeconomic theory if they had first developed a good practical understanding of applied macroeconomics. This textbook is the fullest expression of that rethinking and is grounded in about fifteen years of teaching macro economics at UC Davis and at Duke University along these new lines.