Curriculum Econ 101, Part 7: Growth, Policy & the Big Debates
Econ 101, Part 7: Growth, Policy & the Big Debates
What actually makes economies grow over the long run, where government budgets go, and the enduring debates over taxes, inequality, and regulation.
- What Drives Long-Run Economic Growth The lasting sources of economic growth over decades, and why productivity matters more than any single boom or bust. 📄 Read-aloud
- Human Capital and Productivity Why the skills, education, and health of a workforce are a genuine form of capital that drives productivity and wages. 📄 Read-aloud
- Government Spending: Where the Money Goes A tour of the major categories governments spend on and how the mandatory-versus-discretionary distinction shapes budget debates. 📄 Read-aloud
- Budget Deficits and National Debt The difference between a yearly budget deficit and a country's accumulated national debt, and what makes debt levels concerning or manageable. 📄 Read-aloud
- Taxes and Economic Behavior How taxes shape the everyday decisions people and businesses make, and the tradeoffs involved in raising revenue without distorting incentives. 📄 Read-aloud
- Income Inequality: Measuring the Gap How economists measure income and wealth inequality, and what the resulting numbers do and don't tell us. 📄 Read-aloud
- Public Goods and the Free-Rider Problem Why certain goods like streetlights and national defense are hard for private markets to provide, and how the free-rider problem explains why. 📄 Read-aloud
- The Role of Institutions in Economic Development Why property rights, rule of law, and political stability may matter more for long-run development than natural resources or geography alone. 📄 Read-aloud
- Keynesian vs. Classical Economics The long-running debate between the classical view that economies self-correct and the Keynesian view that active government intervention can be necessary. 📄 Read-aloud
- Big Debates: Regulation, Markets, and the Proper Role of Government A capstone look at the enduring debate over how much government should regulate markets, weighing the case for market freedom against the case for intervention. 📄 Read-aloud
- The Solow Growth Model in Words The classic model of economic growth explained without equations, and its key lesson that long-run growth depends on technology. 📄 Read-aloud
- Convergence: Do Poor Countries Catch Up? Whether poorer countries grow faster than richer ones and close the gap, what the evidence shows, and why some catch up while others fall behind. 📄 Read-aloud
- Industrial Policy: Picking Winners? How governments try to promote particular industries through subsidies, tariffs and support, the arguments for and against, and its revival worldwide. 📄 Read-aloud
- Automatic Stabilisers and Social Safety Nets How taxes and benefits that respond automatically to the economy cushion recessions without new laws, and why they matter. 📄 Read-aloud
- Total Factor Productivity: The Mystery Ingredient of Growth What economists mean by total factor productivity, why it explains so much of the difference between rich and poor countries, and what raises it. 📄 Read-aloud