Because modern macroeconomics is by nature dynamic, the mathematics involved are often difficult for undergraduate students to grasp. Unfortunately, numerical examples that are helpful in clarifying other technical areas of economics are very time consuming and even intractable when using pen,...

Empirical evidence contradicts the view that savings rates are independent of permanent income levels. Instead, a distinctive nonlinear relationship between savings and permanent income has been found. What explains this result? Using Robert Frank's model of the demand for nonpositional goods,...

This paper presents a way to incorporate the neoclassical assumptions of the permanent income hypothesis and rational expectations into a spreadsheet version of a textbook new Keynesian model. This approach allows students to compare these schools of thought through many different types of...

It is shown that the component statistics of the HDI are highly correlated with one another. An implication of this correlation is that a wide range of index weights produce indexes that are statistically identical to the HDI. Indexes with only two of the three HDI components are very highly...