ECO 103: Introduction to Economic Perspectives

Table of Contents: "I do solemnly swear" -- Economic practice : what do economists do? -- Ethical challenges confronting the applied economist -- Historical perspective : "don't predict the interest rate!" -- Interpreting the silence : the economic case against professional economic ethics -- Breaking the silence : a rebuttal of the economic case against professional economic ethics -- The positive case for professional economic ethics -- Learning from others : ethical thought across the professions -- Economists as social engineers : ethical evaluation of market liberalization in the south and transition economies -- Global economic crisis and the crisis in economics -- On sleeping too well : in search of professional economic ethics -- Training the "ethical economist" -- The economist's oath.

Economics isn't just about numbers: It's about politics, psychology, history, and so much more. We are all economists--when we work, save for the future, invest, pay taxes, and buy our groceries. Yet many of us feel lost when the subject arises. Award-winning professor Timothy Taylor tackles all the key questions and hot topics of both microeconomics and macroeconomics, including: why do budget deficits matter? What exactly does the Federal Reserve do? Does globalization take jobs away from American workers? Why is health insurance so costly? The Instant Economist offers the knowledge and sophistication to understand the issues--so you can comprehend and discuss economics on a personal, national, and global level.

In this groundbreaking book, Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller offers a new way to think about the economy and economic change. Using a rich array of historical examples and data, Shiller argues that studying popular stories that affect individual and collective economic behavior--what he calls "narrative economics"--has the potential to vastly improve our ability to predict, prepare for, and lessen the damage of financial crises, recessions, depressions, and other major economic events. Spread through the public in the form of popular stories, ideas can go viral and move markets--whether it's the belief that tech stocks can only go up, that housing prices never fall, or that some firms are too big to fail. Whether true or false, stories like these--transmitted by word of mouth, by the news media, and increasingly by social media--drive the economy by driving our decisions about how and where to invest, how much to spend and save, and more. But despite the obvious importance of such stories, most economists have paid little attention to them. Narrative Economics sets out to change that by laying the foundation for a way of understanding how stories help propel economic events that have had led to war, mass unemployment, and increased inequality. The stories people tell--about economic confidence or panic, housing booms, the American dream, or Bitcoin--affect economic outcomes. Narrative Economics explains how we can begin to take these stories seriously.