Principles of Economics

Written by an award-winning educator and a highly respected macroeconomist, this best-selling introduction to economics demonstrates the relevance of economics in students' studies, lives, and the world. It shows them that economics is a powerful way of thinking and actually teaches them how to think like an economist and how to use economics to interpret world events. This student-friendly, hands-on approach to economics provides a unified approach to economic theory, issues and policies. A lively writing style, clear explanations, good graphs, relevant examples, and an unparalleled supplements package keep students motivated throughout the course.

Karl E. Case is the Katherine Coman and A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics at Wellesley College where he has taught for 24 years and is a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Before coming to Wellesley, he served as Head Tutor (director of undergraduate studies) at Harvard, where he won the Allyn Young Teaching Prize. He has been a member of the AEA's Committee on Economic Education and was Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Education, responsible for the section on innovations in teaching. He teaches at least one section of the principles course every year.

Professor Case received his B.A. from Miami University in 1968, spent three years on active duty in the Army including a year in Vietnam, and received his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1976.

Professor Case's research has been in the areas of real estate, housing, and public finance. He is author or coauthor of five books, including Principles of Economics, Economics and Tax Policy, and Property Taxation: The Need for Reform and has published numerous articles in professional journals.

He is also a founding partner in the real estate research firm of Case Shiller Weiss, Inc. and serves as a member of the Boards of Directors of the Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation (MGIC), Century Bank, The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and the New England Economic Project.

Ray C. Fair is Professor of Economics at Yale University. He is a member of the Cowles Foundation at Yale and a Fellow of the Econometric Society. He received a B.A. in economics from Fresno State College in 1964 and a Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T. in 1968. He taught at Princeton University from 1968 to 1974 and has been at Yale since 1974.

Professor Fair's research has primarily been in the areas of macroeconomics and econometrics, with particular emphasis on macroeconometric model building. His publications include Specification, Estimation, and Analysis of Macroeconometric Models (Harvard Press, 1984) and Testing Macroeconometric Models (Harvard Press, 1994).

Professor Fair has taught introductory and intermediate macroeconomics at Yale. He has also taught graduate courses in macroeconomic theory and macroeconometrics.

Professor Fair's United States and multicountry models are available for use on the Internet free of charge. The address is http://fairmodel.econ.yale.edu. Many teachers have found that having students work with the United States model on the Internet is a useful complement to even an introductory macroeconomics course.