Course Overview

This is macroeconomics for business students. The course teaches you to interpret economic data, understand business cycles, and analyze how Fed decisions and government policies affect firms. You’ll learn to track the benchmarks employers expect business graduates to understand—GDP, unemployment, inflation, interest rates, exchange rates—and distinguish between real and nominal values when analyzing data.

Rather than preparing you for graduate economics study, this course focuses on professional applications: reading the financial press without confusion, understanding how macroeconomic forces affect business decisions, and contributing intelligently to workplace discussions about economic conditions. You’ll develop the vocabulary and analytical tools you’ll actually use in marketing, finance, management, accounting, or analyst roles.

The course uses Cowen and Tabarrok’s Modern Principles with the Achieve homework platform. Assessment includes weekly problem sets, participation measuring in-class engagement, current event quizzes on recent economic data and Fed announcements, and two exams emphasizing real-world applications. A professionalism grade tracks punctuality, email etiquette, and deadline adherence—the skills that keep you employed regardless of technical knowledge.

Ten learning objectives structure the course, each with explicit “why it matters” career justification: real-time economic intelligence (being the person who can scan the jobs report and explain implications), quantitative reasoning with economic data (not confusing nominal with real growth), opportunity-cost framing in decisions (the hallmark of economic thinking), macro-shock analysis using AS–AD, interest-rate determination, Federal Reserve basics, government budget dynamics, long-run growth fundamentals, trade theory and policy, and international finance basics.

This course builds the economic intuition that distinguishes effective business professionals from those who merely memorize formulas.

Course Structure

Unit 1: Microeconomic Foundations

  • Supply & Demand
  • Comparative Advantage & Gains from Trade

Unit 2: Macroeconomic Indicators

  • GDP and the Measurement of Progress
  • Inflation Measurement
  • The Labor Market
  • Saving, Investment, & the Financial System

Unit 3: Business Fluctuations

  • Aggregate Demand Mechanics
  • Aggregate Supply Mechanics
  • AS–AD Integration

Unit 4: Short-run Macroeconomic Policy and Institutions

  • The Fed and Banking
  • The Fiscal Situation
  • Business Cycles, Monetary and Fiscal Policy

Unit 5: Economic Growth and International Macroeconomics

  • Long-Run Growth
  • International Trade
  • International Finance

Course Materials

Textbook: Cowen and Tabarrok, Modern Principles: Macroeconomics (6th Edition)

Platform: Achieve (course code: qus9vd)