Week 9 — Readings & Resources

Course: Principles of Macroeconomics (ECON 2) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Ashford
Focus: Money & the Banking System · Objective 7

Everything below is a link to a free external resource — nothing is embedded, copied, or downloaded. Links were verified live at build time; if one ever rots, the per-term update re-checks them. (Canvas: a Page of links + ExternalUrl module items.)

📖 Read (≈25 min)

1. OpenStax, Principles of Macroeconomics 3e — Ch. 14, "Introduction to Money and Banking."
   🔗 https://openstax.org/books/principles-macroeconomics-3e/pages/14-introduction-to-money-and-banking
   The functions of money, M1/M2 measurement, and how banks create money through fractional-reserve banking — this week's whole arc in one chapter.

2. Marginal Revolution University, "The U.S. Money Supplies."
   🔗 https://mru.org/courses/principles-economics-macroeconomics/monetary-policy-federal-reserve-system-us-money-supplies
   A clear, direct walkthrough of M1 vs. M2 — a nice second explanation of today's qualitative distinction.

▶️ Watch (≈10 min)

3. CrashCourse Economics #11 — "Money and Finance."
   🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dugn51K_6WA
   Money, banking, and the money-multiplier idea, in CrashCourse's fast, friendly style.

🛠️ Tools & data for this week

4. A spreadsheet (Google Sheets or Excel) — you'll build the deposit-loan rounds table here in the Workshop.
   Free; no special account needed beyond a standard Google/Microsoft login.

5. M2 (M2SL) — FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
   🔗 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
   The official U.S. M2 money-stock series — see the real-world scale of the M1/M2 distinction you learned qualitatively this week.

Why these earn the click: OpenStax Ch. 14 is the spine of today's functions-of-money/banking/multiplier material; the MRU piece gives a second, direct explanation of M1 vs. M2; CrashCourse covers the same ground in voice and motion; the spreadsheet is your tool for the Workshop; and the FRED M2 series shows the real (not engineered) scale of the money supply this week's model is a simplified version of.