Does It Spark Joy? Reworking Macroeconomics in a Principles of Economics Course

Abstract

Macroeconomics has a tough job in Principles of Economics. Instructors must not only fit the microeconomics part, but a lot of definitional macroeconomic material that’s prerequisite for even the most basic macroeconomic model. Coming from microeconomics—where students do a lot with supply and demand—this is a bad change of pace. Moreover, instructors usually prolong the microeconomics section more than needed, so the macroeconomics part ends up rushed and students believe that the end-all of the discipline is, at best, a collection of boring concepts that don’t go anywhere. Can we do something to correct this disservice to the discipline? I say yes. In this paper, I discuss solutions from the point of view of a macroeconomist in a (mostly) applied microeconomics department.

Keywords

economics instruction macroeconomics C65 E00

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