The Economy Economics for a Changing World

The only introductory economics text to equip students to address today's pressing problems by mastering the conceptual and quantitative tools of contemporary economics. OUP has partnered with the international collaborative project of CORE researchers and teachers to bring students a book andlearning system that complements and enhances CORE's open-access online e-book.The Economy is a new approach that integrates recent developments in economics including contract theory, strategic interaction, behavioural economics and financial instability. It challenges students to address inequality, climate change, economic instability, wealth creation and innovation andother problems. It has been adopted as the standard principles course at University College London, Sciences Po Paris and the Toulouse School of Economics.A new economics for the principles course The Economy begins with social interactions using elementary game theory and institutions modelled as rules of the game. This provides the basis for a modern treatment of markets including price-making as well as price-taking, the exercise of power, and the importance of social norms and adjustmentto disequilibria. Introducing labour and credit markets with incomplete contracts allows a consistent treatment of aggregate employment and fluctuations without the need for ad hoc sticky price and wage assumptions. Banks create money by extending credit and a central bank seeks to implement a target inflation rate. Growth and instability are illustrated from the Great Depression, through the post-war golden age of capitalism through to the financial crisis and ensuing uncertainties. Students acquire an understanding of the past and current evolution of the economy in its social and environmental context,equipping them to marshal evidence and articulate positions about contemporary policy issues.