Useful Macroeconomics
Edition: 1
Copyright: 2024
Pages: 196
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Each chapter of Useful Macroeconomics is organized around three themes: economic issue history, macro data literacy, and systems thinking and modeling. The first section emphasizes the history of macroeconomic issues and policies in the U.S. economy. The first three chapters survey 160 years, and each remaining chapter zooms in on a single decade, from the 1950s to the 2020s. The data literacy section in each chapter engages students with macro data and concepts, data collection and presentation, and interpretation.
In the third section of each chapter, you will see that this is not your father's macro textbook. There are no static graphs. Students use free software to build dynamic simulation models on their own and build the author's textbook model – MacroLab Lite – one sub-model at a time. There are no 'laws' of economics in this book. Models are presented as hypotheses about economic structure and behavior, and the text engages the students in that constructive approach to science and learning.
The final chapter summarizes the main take-aways from the book, compares our approach to learning macroeconomics with alternatives in other introductory texts, and suggests ways to use our dynamic 'map' to anticipate the terrain of uncharted territory – the future.
The overall approach is based on twenty-five years of classroom experience with both graduate and undergraduate students. Instructors have access to supplementary materials and tutorials for learning and teaching with the free Stella Online software and the MacroLab Lite simulator.
INTRODUCTION
Part 1: PERFORMANCE of the ECONOMY
Chapter 1. Inflation or Deflation: Which is Worse?
Issues, 1790 - 1900
Chapter 2. Employment: Farm to Factory
Issues, 1900 - 1930
Chapter 3. GDP: How to Add Hotdogs, Haircuts, and Hammers
Issues, 1930 – 1950
Part 2: STRUCTURE of the ECONOMY: SUPPLY SIDE
Chapter 4. How Much to Produce?
Issues, 1950s
Chapter 5. Employment or Productivity: Must We Choose?
Issues, 1960s
Chapter 6. Wages or Prices: Which is Chicken, Which is Egg?
Issues, 1970s
Part 3: STRUCTURE of the ECONOMY: SUPPLY/DEMAND/POLICY
Chapter 7. What Goes Around, Comes Around
Issues, 1980s
Chapter 8. Bank Credit: Friend or Foe?
Issues, 1990s
Part 4: STRUCTURE of the ECONOMY: DEMAND SIDE
Chapter 9. Should Government Balance its Budget?
Issues, 2000s
Chapter 10. Consumption: Income or Expense?
Issues, 2010s
Chapter 11. Foreign Trade: Who Wins, Who Loses?
Issues, 2020s
Part 5: STRUCTURE & PERFORMANCE
Chapter 12. Summing Up, Comparing, and Looking Ahead
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY
* Chapters 9-12 will be available in the 2nd edition, January 2025.
I. David Wheat is Emeritus Professor of System Dynamics at the University of Bergen in Norway, Professor of Economic Dynamics at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine, Professor of Economics at Virginia Western Community College in the United States, and retired Professor of Financial Economics at ISM University of Management and Economics in Lithuania. Currently, he teaches macroeconomic modeling and economic dynamics to graduate students in Norway and Ukraine, as well as macroeconomics to undergraduates in the United States. For many years, he taught courses in policy implementation and system dynamics modeling in Norway and monetary policy in Lithuania.
Since the 1990s, students in the United States have been using simplified versions of his MacroLab model to learn macroeconomics. This book was written to complement student use of the current version, which is accessible online with most Internet browsers. He is also a co-editor of Feedback Dynamics: Economic Modeling with System Dynamics (Springer 2021).
His research specialty is simulation modeling of macroeconomic structure, behavior, and policy. His projects include collaboration with Ukrainian economists to build dynamic modeling capacity at national universities in Kyiv and Lviv, a system dynamics version of the central bank’s monetary policy model, and an economic recovery policy model for post-war Ukraine. He also worked with economists at Lithuania’s central bank to develop a multi-industry system dynamics model of price dynamics in Europe.
Wheat is past president of the economics chapter of the International System Dynamics Society, and he has given more than thirty international guest lectures. He served as Associate Editor of the System Dynamics Review and on the Advisory Board of the International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education. For three decades, he was president of Wheat Resources Inc, a consulting firm serving business and government clients. His current firm, Praktika LLC, specializes in coaching others to build useful models. He received his PhD in system dynamics at the University of Bergen, his master’s degree in public policy at Harvard University, and his bachelor’s degree in government and mathematics at Texas Tech University. During the 1970s, he served at the White House as staff assistant to the President of the United States.
In a previous life, he and his young family lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where they built a barn and raised goats and chickens, and he coached back-to-back state championship teams in high school girls’ basketball. After two decades in Norway, he and his wife returned to Virginia and settled in Charlottesville, near Washington, D.C. She is trying to teach him to spell retirement.
Each chapter of Useful Macroeconomics is organized around three themes: economic issue history, macro data literacy, and systems thinking and modeling. The first section emphasizes the history of macroeconomic issues and policies in the U.S. economy. The first three chapters survey 160 years, and each remaining chapter zooms in on a single decade, from the 1950s to the 2020s. The data literacy section in each chapter engages students with macro data and concepts, data collection and presentation, and interpretation.
In the third section of each chapter, you will see that this is not your father's macro textbook. There are no static graphs. Students use free software to build dynamic simulation models on their own and build the author's textbook model – MacroLab Lite – one sub-model at a time. There are no 'laws' of economics in this book. Models are presented as hypotheses about economic structure and behavior, and the text engages the students in that constructive approach to science and learning.
The final chapter summarizes the main take-aways from the book, compares our approach to learning macroeconomics with alternatives in other introductory texts, and suggests ways to use our dynamic 'map' to anticipate the terrain of uncharted territory – the future.
The overall approach is based on twenty-five years of classroom experience with both graduate and undergraduate students. Instructors have access to supplementary materials and tutorials for learning and teaching with the free Stella Online software and the MacroLab Lite simulator.
INTRODUCTION
Part 1: PERFORMANCE of the ECONOMY
Chapter 1. Inflation or Deflation: Which is Worse?
Issues, 1790 - 1900
Chapter 2. Employment: Farm to Factory
Issues, 1900 - 1930
Chapter 3. GDP: How to Add Hotdogs, Haircuts, and Hammers
Issues, 1930 – 1950
Part 2: STRUCTURE of the ECONOMY: SUPPLY SIDE
Chapter 4. How Much to Produce?
Issues, 1950s
Chapter 5. Employment or Productivity: Must We Choose?
Issues, 1960s
Chapter 6. Wages or Prices: Which is Chicken, Which is Egg?
Issues, 1970s
Part 3: STRUCTURE of the ECONOMY: SUPPLY/DEMAND/POLICY
Chapter 7. What Goes Around, Comes Around
Issues, 1980s
Chapter 8. Bank Credit: Friend or Foe?
Issues, 1990s
Part 4: STRUCTURE of the ECONOMY: DEMAND SIDE
Chapter 9. Should Government Balance its Budget?
Issues, 2000s
Chapter 10. Consumption: Income or Expense?
Issues, 2010s
Chapter 11. Foreign Trade: Who Wins, Who Loses?
Issues, 2020s
Part 5: STRUCTURE & PERFORMANCE
Chapter 12. Summing Up, Comparing, and Looking Ahead
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY
* Chapters 9-12 will be available in the 2nd edition, January 2025.
I. David Wheat is Emeritus Professor of System Dynamics at the University of Bergen in Norway, Professor of Economic Dynamics at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine, Professor of Economics at Virginia Western Community College in the United States, and retired Professor of Financial Economics at ISM University of Management and Economics in Lithuania. Currently, he teaches macroeconomic modeling and economic dynamics to graduate students in Norway and Ukraine, as well as macroeconomics to undergraduates in the United States. For many years, he taught courses in policy implementation and system dynamics modeling in Norway and monetary policy in Lithuania.
Since the 1990s, students in the United States have been using simplified versions of his MacroLab model to learn macroeconomics. This book was written to complement student use of the current version, which is accessible online with most Internet browsers. He is also a co-editor of Feedback Dynamics: Economic Modeling with System Dynamics (Springer 2021).
His research specialty is simulation modeling of macroeconomic structure, behavior, and policy. His projects include collaboration with Ukrainian economists to build dynamic modeling capacity at national universities in Kyiv and Lviv, a system dynamics version of the central bank’s monetary policy model, and an economic recovery policy model for post-war Ukraine. He also worked with economists at Lithuania’s central bank to develop a multi-industry system dynamics model of price dynamics in Europe.
Wheat is past president of the economics chapter of the International System Dynamics Society, and he has given more than thirty international guest lectures. He served as Associate Editor of the System Dynamics Review and on the Advisory Board of the International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education. For three decades, he was president of Wheat Resources Inc, a consulting firm serving business and government clients. His current firm, Praktika LLC, specializes in coaching others to build useful models. He received his PhD in system dynamics at the University of Bergen, his master’s degree in public policy at Harvard University, and his bachelor’s degree in government and mathematics at Texas Tech University. During the 1970s, he served at the White House as staff assistant to the President of the United States.
In a previous life, he and his young family lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where they built a barn and raised goats and chickens, and he coached back-to-back state championship teams in high school girls’ basketball. After two decades in Norway, he and his wife returned to Virginia and settled in Charlottesville, near Washington, D.C. She is trying to teach him to spell retirement.