Product Review

In recent years, innovative texts in mathematics, science, foreign languages, and other fields have achieved dramatic pedagogical gains by abandoning the traditional encyclopedic approach in favor of teaching a shorter list of core principles in depth. Two well-respected writers and researchers, Bob Frank and Ben Bernanke, have shown that the less-is-more approach affords similar gains in introductory economics. The authors introduce a coherent short list of core principles and reinforce them by illustrating and applying each in numerous contexts. With engaging questions, explanations and exercises, the authors help students relate economic principles to a host of everyday experiences such as going to the ATM or purchasing airline tickets. Throughout this process, the authors encourage students to become economic naturalists: people who employ basic economic principles to understand and explain what they observe in the world around them.