Week 10 — Readings & Resources

Course: Principles of Macroeconomics (ECON 2) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Ashford
Focus: The Federal Reserve & Monetary Policy · 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 (≈30 min)

1. OpenStax, Principles of Macroeconomics 3e — Ch. 15, "Introduction to Monetary Policy and Bank Regulation."
   🔗 https://openstax.org/books/principles-macroeconomics-3e/pages/15-introduction-to-monetary-policy-and-bank-regulation
   The Fed's structure, its goals, how a central bank executes monetary policy, and the zero-lower-bound problem — the spine of today's material.

2. Marginal Revolution University — "Monetary Policy and the Fed."
   🔗 https://mru.org/courses/principles-economics-macroeconomics/monetary-policy-federal-reserve-system
   A dedicated Fed / monetary-policy explainer from MRU's Principles of Economics: Macroeconomics course (Tyler Cowen & Alex Tabarrok, GMU) — a second voice on the same structure and tools.

▶️ Watch (≈10 min)

3. CrashCourse Economics #10 — "What's all the Yellen About? Monetary Policy and the Federal Reserve."
   🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dq7mMort9o
   How the Fed steers the economy via interest rates and the money supply — a fast, friendly companion to today's lecture.

🛠️ Tools & data for this week

4. Desmos Graphing Calculator — you'll plot the money market here in the Workshop.
   🔗 https://www.desmos.com/calculator
   Free, no account needed. Try graphing r = 12 - M/100 alongside a vertical line at M = 600.

5. Monetary Policy — Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
   🔗 https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy.htm
   The Fed's own official hub — the most recent FOMC statement and upcoming meeting dates, straight from the source.

6. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) — Federal Reserve.
   🔗 https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomc.htm
   The Fed's own page on the FOMC's structure and membership — see who actually sits on the committee that votes on policy.

Why these earn the click: OpenStax Ch. 15 and the MRU explainer build today's structure, dual mandate, and tools from two complementary angles; CrashCourse gives the same ideas in voice and motion; Desmos is your graphing tool for the Workshop; and the two federalreserve.gov pages let you see the Fed's own description of itself and the FOMC, straight from the source.