ECO 202 - Principles of Macroeconomics

Prof. Glenn J. Platt
Miami University
Spring 1998

Macroeconomics is the study of human behavior at an aggregate level. It is a philosophy, business, and political science course all rolled into one. We will examine how the U.S. economy and, in fact, most other economies behave. Where Microeconomics looks at how individuals behave, Macroeconomics looks at how the the whole economy behaves. Macroeconomics looks at "The Big Picture." We will look at the role played by the Federal Reserve, Congress, and the Presidency in determining the state of the economy. We will examine the importance and role of interest rates, growth, inflation, and income distribution. At the end of the course, you will understand how to read, understand, and critically analyze articles in the newspaper related to the state of the U.S. economy. Furthermore, you will gain an understanding about how this affects you personally and affects people in other countries.

This course is structured rather unusually and it is important that you spend time at the beginning of the course learning how to best use the learning resources that the course offers. The most common problem I have heard from students in this course is that they understood the theory when they heard it in lecture, but then when they had to apply it to a new situation in an exam they were confused. For this reason, I have structured the course very differently. It is an "inverted classroom." You will learn the theory outside of class and we will spend our time inside of class doing hands-on work with problems and experiments so you can practice the process of applying the theory.

The semester is split up into eighteen units. For each unit, you will be expected to read the chapter before coming to class. In addition to the textbook there are a number of resources available for you to use as learning aids. These include PowerPoint lectures and notes, a Practicum, on-line quizzes with immediate feedback, internet links to relevant information, electronic bulletin boards, a supplemental instructor, and my office hours. You are expected to take advantage of as many of these resources as necessary for you to understand the material as best as possible. On the first day of a unit you will come to class having read and understood the material as best as possible, completed the assignment for that unit to the best of your ability, and you should bring any questions about the material to class with you. We will discuss and answer all questions first thing that day. We also will typically conduct a lab experiment on that day. On subsequent days, we will go over our assignments and labs in groups and discuss them as a class.