Week 4 · Readings & resources

Week 4 — Readings & Resources

Principles of Macroeconomics Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 4 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 10 items (4 readings and 6 videos). Allow 55–71 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more practice, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (17–21 min total)

① What does growth look like? The frontier moves outward

Chapter 4, Section “Define growth: the whole frontier moves outward” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Growth on the frontier” · Remember: growth moves the whole frontier outward, which is different from putting idle workers back to work.

Consumer and Capital Goods in Production Possibility Frontier — Steve Lobsey — a two-minute look at how an economy's choice between consumer goods and capital goods today changes how far its frontier can shift outward later. This builds on Week 1's work with the production possibilities frontier. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)
What is economic growth? And why is it so important? — Our World in Data — a plain-language essay on what it means for an economy to produce more, why growth sustained over many years matters for health, housing, and schooling, and what output measures leave out; read it for the big picture and skip the charts if you are short on time. (reading, 10–15 min)

② How fast does it double? Growth rates and compounding

Chapter 4, Section “Estimate doubling time: the rule of 70” · Session 1, Segment 2, “Growth rates, doubling time, and compound growth” · Remember: divide 70 by the growth rate to estimate doubling time, and say about, because the rule is an approximation.

The Rule of 70 explained by @Beautifuleconomics — Beautiful Economics — a short walk-through of the doubling-time shortcut, dividing 70 by the growth rate, with examples from savings and populations as well as whole economies. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)
Understanding Compound Interest and Economic Growth — Decode Econ — shows why growth that builds on earlier growth makes small differences in rates grow into large gaps, first with a savings balance and then with a whole economy. Use it while working through the Week-4 module overview. (video, 6 min) (captions: creator)

③ Is the average person better off? Output per person

Chapter 4, Section “Measure living standards: per-capita growth” · Session 2, Segment 3, “Per-capita growth and living standards” · Remember: subtract population growth from total growth before you say living standards rose.

Per Capita GDP — Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — a two-minute definition of output per person: a country's GDP divided by its population, read as a rough gauge of the average standard of living. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)
How do we measure standard of living? — Federal Reserve Bank of Boston — a short magazine-style article that breaks real GDP per capita into its pieces, lists what it leaves out, and explains in a sidebar why productivity is the key to living standards; the later pages on alternative indexes are optional. (reading, 8–12 min)

④ Where does growth come from? Productivity and its sources

Chapter 4, Section “Name the sources of growth: capital, skills, and ideas” · Session 2, Segment 4, “Productivity and the sources of growth” · Remember: output per worker rises with more and better equipment, more skills, and better ideas.

Productivity and Growth: Crash Course Economics #6 — CrashCourse — a lively tour of why some countries are rich and others poor, built around productivity, output per person, and the equipment, skills, and ideas behind them. Stop here before aggregate demand and aggregate supply; next week takes that up. (video, 9 min) (captions: creator)
Human Capital — Council for Economic Education — a short explainer on how education, training, and experience raise what each worker can produce, and why building skills has its own opportunity cost. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)
Productivity overview — U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — the statistics agency's own short answer to the question of what productivity is: output compared with the hours of work used to make it, and the changes in equipment, skills, and methods that can raise it. Read the section headed What is productivity and skip the data tables. (reading, 3–5 min)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Economic Growth — Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, Econlib — an encyclopedia entry on growth; read the opening sections on compound rates of growth and growth in income per capita, and the later ones on ideas if you want more on technology. It rounds the doubling-time constant a little differently from this course, so treat its shortcut as a cousin of the rule of 70. (reading, 10–15 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com