Activity: Budgeting and Financial Fitness for Life This feature provides supplementary analysis for the material in Part IV of Common Sense Economics, particularly Element 3 on how to use budgeting to help you save regularly and spend your money effectively. There are three budgeting exercises that can be completed sequentially or separately.
Activity: Demand, Supply and Adjustments to Dynamic Change Supplemental Unit 1. Demand, Supply, and Adjustments to Dynamic Change Common Sense Economics highlights how markets work and their impact on the allocation of resources especially in Part I. This feature will investigate this issue in more detail. It will use graphical analysis to analyze demand, supply, determination of the market price, and how markets adjust to dynamic change.
Activity: The Economic Crisis of 2008: Causes and Lessons for the Future Supplemental Unit 7. The Economic Crisis of 2008: Causes and Lessons for the Future This supplemental PDF document investigates the causes of the Great Recession and offers lessons for the future. This features works particularly good with Parts II and III of Common Sense Economics. For more information see Macroeconomics: Private and Public Choice, 13th Edition at www.cengage.com/economics/gwartney
Activity: Fiscal Policy and Budget Deficits Supplemental Unit 4. What Is the Unemployment Rate and How Is It Measured? This feature provides supplementary analysis for the material in Part II of Common Sense Economics. It discusses unemployment. Employment matters. Employment generates income, and income funds spending, saving, investing, and charitable giving. During periods of unemployment, people must draw down savings, withdraw investments, depend on transfer payments like unemployment compensation or welfare, reduce spending, or turn to other means to finance their daily expenses. So, it is important to know what the rate of unemployment or joblessness is and how it is measured.
Activity: The Great Depression and Lessons Learned
Activity:Gross Domestic Product: What It Is and How It Is Measured? Supplemental Unit 3 Gross Domestic Product (GDP): What Is It and How Is It Measured? This feature provides supplementary analysis for the material in Part II of Common Sense Economics, particularly Element 1 which discusses the most widely used measure of output, Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Changes in GDP are also widely used to measure the growth of an economy.
Activity: Monetary Policy: How Is It Conducted and How Does It Affect the Economy? Supplemental Unit 6. Monetary Policy: How Is It Conducted and How Does It Affect the Economy? Instructors teaching a course that covers the operation of monetary policy may want to use this feature in conjunction with Parts II and III of Common Sense Economics. Part II, Element 5 of Common Sense Economics stresses the contribution of monetary and price stability as a source of long-term economic growth. This supplement provides additional detail on how monetary policy is conducted and considers how it influences fluctuations in the levels of output and employment. This feature, along with Supplemental Unit 5 on “Fiscal Policy and Budget Deficits”, provides students with the most important information about how monetary and fiscal policies influence economic fluctuations.
Activity: What Is the Unemployment Rate and How Is It Measured? Supplemental Unit 4. What Is the Unemployment Rate and How Is It Measured? This feature provides supplementary analysis for the material in Part II of Common Sense Economics. It discusses unemployment. Employment matters. Employment generates income, and income funds spending, saving, investing, and charitable giving. During periods of unemployment, people must draw down savings, withdraw investments, depend on transfer payments like unemployment compensation or welfare, reduce spending, or turn to other means to finance their daily expenses. So, it is important to know what the rate of unemployment or joblessness is and how it is measured.
Activity: Who Pays for Government or Private Projects and Why It Matters Supplemental Unit 9. Who Pays and Why It Matters This feature provides supplementary analysis for the material in Part III of Common Sense Economics, particularly Element 8 on the economics of central government planning. Goods and services can be either produced by private enterprises or supplied by the government. They can be paid for either by the consumer directly or by the taxpayer or some other third party. Does it make any difference whether a good is produced by a private firm or by a government enterprise? Does it matter whether the good is paid for by its consumer or by a third party? This supplemental answers these questions.
What is Seen and What Is Not Seen by Frederic Bastiat (Audio, 18.11 minutes) Bastiat was an economist who was also a member of the French parliament in the middle of the nineteenth century. Interestingly, the issues he raises are as valid today as they were over 150 years ago. Reference: Bastiat, Frederic, Selected Essays on Political Economy. The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. 1995. Trans. Seymour Cain. Ed. George B. de Huszar. Library of Economics and Liberty. 27 January 2014.
