Week 14 — Readings & Resources

Course: Principles of Macroeconomics (ECON 2) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Ashford
Focus: Open-Economy Macro: Exchange Rates & the Balance of Payments · Objective 8

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 (≈20 min)

1. OpenStax, Principles of Macroeconomics 3e — Ch. 16, "Exchange Rates and International Capital Flows" (How the Foreign Exchange Market Works · Macroeconomic Effects of Exchange Rates)
   🔗 https://openstax.org/books/principles-macroeconomics-3e/pages/16-key-concepts-and-summary
   Appreciation/depreciation, how the FX market works, and the macro effects of exchange-rate moves — the chapter's own key-concepts page ties the whole week together.

▶️ Watch (≈10 min)

2. CrashCourse Economics #15 — "Imports, Exports, and Exchange Rates." (Adriene Hill & Jacob Clifford)
   🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geoe-6NBy10
   Exchange-rate basics and the trade-deficit concept, in the same friendly, fast format as the rest of the series.

🛠️ Tools & Data for this week

3. Desmos Graphing Calculator — useful for building your own currency-conversion table in the Workshop.
   🔗 https://www.desmos.com/calculator
   Free, no account needed.

4. Japanese Yen to U.S. Dollar Spot Exchange Rate (DEXJPUS) — FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
   🔗 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DEXJPUS
   The real, live daily yen/dollar exchange rate — see how this week's engineered $1 = ¥100 → ¥120 scenario compares to an actual market series over time.

Why these earn the click: OpenStax Ch. 16 is the spine of today's appreciation/depreciation, FX-market, and NX material; CrashCourse gives the same ideas in voice and motion; Desmos supports your Workshop currency-conversion table; the FRED yen/dollar series lets you see a real exchange rate move for yourself, the same way this week's engineered numbers move.