Preface

As an undergraduate economics student, I never imagined writing a textbook—let alone one going into its eleventh edition. Back in those good old days, economics texts were all stand-alone books without any supplements, and seldom cost students more than five dollars. While we certainly need to keep up with the times, not all change is for the good. Surely not when our students are paying $150 for textbooks they barely read.

Why not write a book that students would actually enjoy reading and sell it at a price they can afford? Rather than serving up the same old dull fare, why not just have a conversation with the reader, illustrating various economic concepts anecdotally?

Economics can be a rather intimidating subject, with its extensive vocabulary, complicated graphs, and quantitative tendencies. Is it possible to write a principles text that lowers the student’s anxiety level without watering down the subject matter? To do this, one would need to be an extremely good writer, have extensive teaching experience, and have solid academic training in economics. In this case, two out of three is just not good enough.

Why did I write this book? Probably my moment of decision arrived more than 25 years ago when I mentioned to my macro class that Kemp-Roth cut the top personal income tax bracket from 70 percent to 50 percent. Then I asked, “If you were rich, by what percentage were your taxes cut?”

The class sat there in complete silence. Most of the students stared at the blackboard, waiting for me to work out the answer. I told them to work it out themselves. I waited. And I waited. Finally, someone said, “Twenty percent?”

“Close,” I replied, “but no cigar.”
“Fourteen percent?” someone else ventured.
“No, you’re getting colder.”

After waiting another two or three minutes, I saw one student with her hand up. One student knew that the answer was almost 29 percent—one student in a class of 30.

When do they teach students how to do percentage changes? In high school? In middle school? Surely not in a college economics course.

How much of your time do you spend going over simple arithmetic and algebra? How much time do you spend going over simple graphs? Wouldn’t you rather be spending that time discussing economics?

Now you’ll be able to do just that, because all the arithmetic and simple algebra that you normally spend time explaining are covered methodically in this book. All you’ll need to do is tell your students which pages to look at.

The micro chapters offer scores of tables and graphs for the students to plot on their own; the solutions are shown in the book. Learning actively rather than passively, your students will retain a lot more economics.

As an economics instructor for more than 30 years at such fabled institutions as Brooklyn College, New York Institute of Technology, St. Francis College (Brooklyn), and Union County College, I have used a variety of texts. But each of their authors assumed a mathematical background that the majority of my students did not have. Each also assumed that his graphs and tables were comprehensible to the average student.

The biggest problem we have with just about any book we assign is that many of our students don’t bother to read it before coming to class. Until now, no one has written a principles text in plain English. I can’t promise that every one of your students will do the readings you assign, but at least they won’t be able to complain anymore about not understanding the book.

Distinctive Qualities

My book has seven qualities that no other principles text has.

1. It reviews math that students haven’t done since middle school and high school.
2. It’s an interactive text, encouraging active rather than passive reading. Students are expected to solve numerical problems, fill in tables, draw graphs, and do economic analysis as they read the text.
3. It’s a combined textbook and workbook. Students in the principles course learn economics by doing economics. Each chapter is followed by workbook pages that include multiple-choice and fill-in questions, as well as numerical problems.
4. It is a cost-effective textbook solution. And it has a built-in study guide.
5. It’s written in plain English without jargon. See for yourself. Open any page and compare my writing style with that of any other principles author. This book is written to communicate clearly and concisely with the students’ needs in mind.
6. It is written with empathy for students. My goal is to get students past their math phobias and fear of graphs by having them do hundreds of problems, step-by-step, literally working their way through the book.
7. It is a text pitched both to advanced students and students who are struggling. What you have is a three-track book – a mainstream text, advanced work boxes for those who want to be challenged, and extra help boxes for the students who need more support.