Economic analysis "V.2, C.2"

Volume2. Macroeconomic

The purpose of this book is twofold. It is intended as a text from which the student can learn and the teacher can teach the methods and results of economic analysis. It also seeks to be a contribution to the development and systematization of the body of economic analysis itself. These pur poses are not separate. The task of presenting a systematic, orderly, and accurate account of economic analysis is identical with the task of pre paring the material for teaching. It must be emphasized, however, that the purpose of this work is not primarily to entertain the student, or to enable him to regurgitate appropriate material into examination books, or to learn a few pat phrases, or to indoctrinate him with an abstract discipline which he will never use. Economics is like photography in this respect, that underexposure is less desirable than no exposure at all; and it is to be feared that too many half-exposed students are produced by our institutions of higher learning. The picture of economics held in their minds is a blurred and confused one, and what they have learned is not sufficiently accurate to serve as a tool for the analysis of practical problems. It is hoped that the student who survives this book will at least have come to regard economic analysis as a discipline useful in the in terpretation and solution of numerous problems of life and thought, and will be able to add its methods to the cutting tools of his mind. Hence this is a work for the serious student, and not for the course-taster.