Microeconomics Interactive
Macroeconomics Interactive
Michael Parkin, University of Western Ontario
Robin Bade
Jeff Sarbaum, University of North Carolina Greensboro
An immersive and experiential dive into the principles of economics
In the fully digital premier releases of Microeconomics Interactive and Macroeconomics Interactive, authors Michael Parkin, Robin Bade, and Jeff Sarbaum deliver a highly interactive experience developed with today’s student in mind.
Informed by their years of teaching the subject to a diverse body of students, the authors believe that the best way to learn economics is to experience economics. Using their evidence-based pedagogy of Explain It, Graph It, Explore It, Apply It, Review It, and Check That I’ve Got It (the IT Factor!), these titles break down challenging economic principles into smaller sections, and have students work through problems and check their understanding along the way.
Engaging and authentic videos, exercises featuring real-life scenarios, and interactive graphing opportunities challenge students to play an active role in their learning and to think like true economists.
Chapter-opening videos
Each chapter begins with a story about an event in one of the authors’ lives. These videos introduce topics and raise questions that are then answered later on in the chapter.
Explain It text narratives
Concise explanations walk students through complex concepts. Interactive checks for understanding and targeted feedback promote active reading and learning.
Graph It interactive models
Step-by-step instructions on how to build a graph, paired with interactive questions and feedback, let students learn at their own pace and ensure they fully understand graphical analysis.
Explore It interactive models
Interactive graphs enable students to change variables with sliders and observe the predicted outcomes.
Apply It videos
Video assignments help students see how a concept they have recently learned about explains an interesting real-world event.
Review It videos
Summary videos provide students with an audio-visual recap of information presented on each learning objective, prior to working the end-of-section practice exercises.
Check that I’ve got it
End-of-section practice exercises act as short quizzes and provide students with detailed feedback for incorrect answers.
Chapter-closing videos
End-of-chapter videos revisit the chapter-opening story and ask students to apply what they’ve just learned using video-embedded interactive question and answering.
Chapter workouts
Comprehensive chapter quizzes use multiple-choice, free-response, and student-draw-graph exercises. They can be assigned as tests for credit or as homework with feedback to reinforce learning.
Robin Bade
Michael Parkin
Michael Parkin
Michael Parkin studied economics in England and began his university teaching career immediately after graduating with a BA from the University of Leicester. He learned the subject on the job at the University of Essex, England’s most exciting new university of the 1960s, and at the age of 30 became one of the youngest full professors. He is a past president of the Canadian Economics Association and has served on the editorial boards of the American Economic Review and the Journal of Monetary Economics. His research on macroeconomics, monetary economics, and international economics has resulted in more than 160 publications in journals and edited volumes, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Monetary Economics, and the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking. He is author of the best-selling textbook, Economics (Pearson), now in its 12th Edition.
Robin and Michael are a wife-and-husband team. Their most notable joint research created the Bade-Parkin Index of central bank independence and spawned a vast amount of research on the topic. They don’t claim credit for the independence of the new European Central Bank, but its constitution and the movement toward greater independence of central banks around the world were aided by their pioneering work. Their joint textbooks include Macroeconomics (Prentice-Hall), Modern Macroeconomics (Pearson Education Canada), and Economics: Canada in the Global Environment, the Canadian adaptation of Parkin, Economics (Addison-Wesley). They are dedicated to the challenge of explaining economics ever more clearly to a growing body of students. Music, the theater, art, walking on the beach, and five grandchildren provide their relaxation and fun.
Robin Bade
Robin Bade
Robin Bade was an undergraduate at the University of Queensland, Australia, where she earned degrees in mathematics and economics. After a spell teaching high school math and physics, she enrolled in the PhD program at the Australian National University, from which she graduated in 1970. She has held faculty appointments at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland; at Bond University in Australia; and at the Universities of Manitoba, Toronto, and Western Ontario in Canada. Her research on international capital flows appears in the International Economic Review and the Economic Record. Robin first taught a principles of economics course in 1970 and has continued to teach it (alongside intermediate macroeconomics and international trade and finance) most years since then. She developed many of the ideas found in this text while conducting tutorials with her students at the University of Western Ontario.
Jeff Sarbaum
Jeff Sarbaum
Jeff Sarbaum, senior lecturer of economics, University of North Carolina Greensboro, has over 20 years of university teaching experience and has been engaged in online education for over 10 years. He has developed numerous innovative graduate and undergraduate online courses, integrating traditional pedagogy with new modalities and technologies. He has been nominated for the UNCG Excellence Award in Online Education and been invited to speak about his work at numerous conferences, including a keynote presentation at a Duke University Instructional Technology Showcase. Dr. Sarbaum has served on the UNCG Bryan School of Business and Economics Committee on Online Learning, and is currently a member of the UNCG Faculty Senate Online Learning Committee. His research and publications focus on the use of effective online pedagogy and the development of assessment protocols. He is a recipient of the UNCG Excellence Award for Student Learning Enhancement and Co-PI of a project funded by the National Science Foundation to develop online modules that teach mathematics skills in the context of economics.
1. Getting Started
2. The Economic Problem
3. Demand and Supply
4. Elasticity
5. Efficiency and Fairness of Markets
6. Government Actions in Markets: Price and Quantity Controls
7. Taxes
8. Trading with the World
9. Market Failure: Externalities and Healthcare
10. Public Choices, Public Goods, and Common Resources
11. Consumer Choice and Demand
12. Production and Cost
13. Perfect Competition
14. Monopoly
15. Monopolistic Competition
16. Oligopoly
17. Markets for Factors of Production
18. Economic Inequality
Macroeconomics Interactive
1. Getting Started
2. The Economic Problem
3. Demand and Supply
4. GDP and the Standard of Living
5. The CPI and the Cost of Living
6. Jobs and Unemployment
7. Potential GDP and Economic Growth
8. Aggregate Supply and Aggregate Demand
9. Aggregate Expenditure Multipliers
10. Finance, Saving, and Investment
11. Fiscal Policy
12. The Monetary System
13. The Fed's Dual Mandate and Policy Tradeoff
14. Monetary Policy
15. International Finance
16. Trading with the World