We wanted to provide more materials for professors who wanted them without bogging down those that didn’t. In-text "Web Buttons" allow for more instructor flexibility. These small icons appear throughout the text, indicating additional information on a related subject can be found at our Web site auth.mhhe.com/economics/mcconnell15e. Instructors can choose to assign all or none of the materials. Types of Web Buttons include:

• Thesymbol directs students to Analogies, Anecdotes, and Insights. These 50 short pieces, written by Stan Brue, help students understand and remember economic ideas by connecting them to other better-known ideas or easy-to-remember stories and examples.
• The symbol directs students to Origins of the Idea. These brief histories were written by Randy Grant of Linfield College and examine the origins of 68 major ideas identified in the book. Students can learn about the person who first developed such ideas as opportunity costs, equilibrium price, the multiplier, comparative advantage, and elasticity.
• The symbol directs students to Interactive Graphs. Developed under the supervision of Norris Peterson of Pacific Lutheran University, these Java applets depict major graphs and instruct students to shift the curves, observe the outcomes, and derive relevant generalizations.

Although most students in the principles course have only modest math skills, a few have taken advanced high school or college courses in mathematics. For the latter group, seeing the algebra and, in a few cases, the calculus behind the economics is highly revealing and useful. Professor Norris Peterson of Pacific Lutheran University has created a Web feature called Do You Want to See the Math? There are 50 math notes that are keyed to the page numbers in the book. They are creative, concise, and will enhance the economics experience for math-minded students.

About one-fourth of the Last Words are new and others have been revised and updated. The new topics include the remarkable organizational ability of markets (Chapter 4); the sources of the data used to construct the GDP accounts (Chapter 7); Say’s Law, the Great Depression, and Keynes (Chapter 9); the diminished impact of oil prices (Chapter 16); some pleasant side-effects of the New Economy (Chapter 17); debt reduction and the U.S. trade deficit (Chapter 18); the Taylor monetary rule (Chapter 19); an unusual impact of rent controls (Chapter 20); the economics of criminal behavior (Chapter 20); the positive externalities of antitheft auto tracking devices (Chapter 30); U.S. wealth and its distribution; (Chapter 34); and the struggle for control of capital in Russia (Internet chapter).

The completely updated and revised chapter "Economies in Transition: Russia and China" is available for free use at our Web site. It contains all the features of regular chapters, is readable in Adobe format, and can be printed or read on-screen. Moreover, those who assign this bonus chapter will have a full complement of book supplements to aid in study and testing.

Streamlined Presentations

A majority of chapter openers were rewritten for a quicker jump into topics and the entire book was edited with an eye toward cutting extraneous words. Our efforts resulted not only in a shorter book, but in more efficient organization and greater clarity in many places. An example is Chapter 4, which is both shorter and better organized than before. You will find similar kinds of improvements throughout the fifteenth edition. Where needed, of course, the "extra sentence of explanation" remains a distinguishing characteristic of Economics. Brevity at the expense of clarity is a false economy.

Revised Macro

Chapter 8 (Introduction to Economic Growth, Unemployment, and Inflation) now discusses economic growth, as well as unemployment and inflation. We simplified the presentations in Chapters 9 and 10 by focusing the graphical analysis on the aggregate expenditures-real output model rather than on both it and the leakage-injection model. This allowed us to eliminate the most difficult graphs in Chapter 10. Instead, we now develop the equilibrium condition C + I_g + X_n + G = GDP graphically and then simply use our tables to demonstrate that two subsidiary equilibrium conditions are met: leakages = injections and unintended changes in inventories are zero.

Part 4 is now labeled "Long-Run Perspectives and Macroeconomic Debates." The chapters are revised and reorganized to reflect the new emphasis. Chapter 16 extends the analysis of aggregate supply to the long run. Chapter 17 looks at economic growth and has a complete discussion of the New Economy thesis. Chapter 18 discusses public debt and recent budget surpluses, and Chapter 19 examines disputes over macro theory and policy.

Improved Micro

We made a number of micro discussions less daunting and more interesting by changing abstract, axiomatic examples (such as X and Y) to concrete examples familiar to students. Also, in keeping with our goal of streamlining discussions, we have consolidated and deleted selected content that was either peripheral to the discussion or was covered in further detail in later chapters.

We realize instructors rarely assign all five micro application chapters (regulation and antitrust; agriculture, income inequality and poverty, labor market issues; and health care economics), but they appreciate the option to select two or three. We gave these chapters particular attention so that discussion of issues is thoroughly updated. For example, Chapter 32 on regulation and antitrust is consolidated and now ends with a new Last Word on the Microsoft case. Chapter 33 on agriculture reflects the recent decline in the prices of some farm products and the renewed debate over the Freedom to Farm Act. The discussion of income inequality in Chapter 34 is reorganized for greater clarity and smoother flow. Chapter 36 on health care reflects the latest data and most current issues.

REVISION DETAILS - PART BY PART

• Part 1. Chapter 1: Changed terminology from material wants to economic wants; revised discussion of economic methodology, focusing on the scientific method. Chapter 2: Reorganized section on applications; greatly consolidated section on economic systems. Chapter 3: Several new examples including increased demand for coffee drinks, soy-enhanced hamburger as an inferior good, increased supply of Internet service provision. Chapter 4: New chapter title and introduction; revised section on competition to generalize beyond pure competition; consolidation of the Five Fundamental Questions to Four, with discussion explicitly organized around each; briefer chapter. Chapter 5: New chapter title; new terminology: "horizontally organized firms," "vertically integrated firms," and "conglomerates"; new Figure 5-7 on government spending; Chapter 6: New Figure 6-3 showing the types of international flows (trade flows, resource flows, information and technology flows, and money flows); new discussion of the euro; expanded discussion of the WTO.

• Part 2. Chapter 7: briefer introduction; improved explanation of inventory changes as investment; revised discussion of government purchases to reflect the consumption and gross investment portions as now accounted for in GDP. Chapter 8: Revised Global Perspective 8-1 to show comparable growth rates since 1990, as well as since 1950; reorganized discussion of the unemployment section; Table 8-3 now includes unemployment rates for Hispanics; new Figure 8-4 shows inflation rates over the years rather than tracing out the CPI; revised discussion of redistribution and output effects of inflation. Chapter 9: Moved the section on the historical backdrop to the aggregate expenditures model to a new Last Word (Say’s Law, the Great Depression, and Keynes); simplified terminology and discussion of the role of inventory changes in achieving equilibrium; fuller discussion of the wealth effect. Chapter 10: Consolidated the application on the Great Depression and added a new application on recession in Japan during the late 1990s. Chapter 11: Discussion of changes in AD and AS are now organized around specific macro outcomes; new section on simultaneous full employment, strong growth, and price stability; deleted discussion of the ratchet effect. Chapter 12: New Figure 12-4 and a greatly revised and simplified discussion of the full employment budget and the method of evaluating whether fiscal policy is neutral, contractionary, or expansionary.

• Part 3. Chapter 13: The section on "Recent Developments" now stresses consolidation among banks, the convergence of services among financial institutions, and electronic transactions. Chapter 14: Changed terminology from demand deposits to checkable deposits. Chapter 15: Deleted peripheral content; demand-deposit multiplier is now checkable deposit multiplier; new discussion of the ineffectiveness of expansionary monetary policy in Japan.

• Part 4. Chapter 16: Significantly revised and condensed section on the inflation-unemployment relationship; consolidated discussion of supply-side economics. Chapter 17: New Figure 17-3 links shifts in the production possibilities curve and the long-run AS curve; replaced the discussion of the productivity slowdown with a new section on productivity growth and the New Economy; new Figure 17-7 compares trend productivity growth between 1973-1995 and 1995-2000; new Global Perspective 17-2 shows growth competitiveness rankings of countries; brought the material on "Is growth desirable?" from the Last Word of the prior edition to the body in this edition. Chapter 18: New discussion of budget surpluses and policy options for using them; new Figure 18-4 shows the rising percentage of the U. S. population over 65. Chapter 19: New discussion of the Taylor monetary rule.

• Part 5. Chapter 20: Titled changed to reflect chapter content; added application section on cross elasticity of demand; revamped section on government-controlled prices. Chapter 21: Updated applications and extension section; changed language from budget restraint to budget constraint. Chapter 22: Improved explanation of explicit and implicit costs; added "learning-by-doing" to the list of sources of economies of scale; new applications of economies of scale (startup firms and newspapers). Chapter 23: Deleted the section on "Qualifications" to shorten the chapter and because we discuss each in detail in later chapters. Chapter 24: New, updated examples throughout; substantially revised section "Assessment and Policy Options." Chapter 25: greatly shortened the discussion of cartels by focusing on only recent, rather than historical, OPEC actions; changed the identities of firms in the discussion of kinked demand from A, B, C to hypothetically named firms. Chapter 26: Edited down some long lists of examples and added new examples.

• Part 6. Chapter 27: Added Tables 27-5 and 27-6 on occupational trends in the United States. Chapter 28: Transposed the graphs in Figure 28-3; revised discussion of the minimum wage; new Figure 28-9 shows how wage differentials can arise on either the demand or supply side of labor markets. Chapter 29: made the discussion of the single-tax proposal an application of the idea of economic rent.

• Part 7. Chapter 30: Revised Table 30-2 on cost-benefit analysis; integrated the discussion of specific antipollution policies within the analysis of negative externalities; added a brief section on global warming; New Global Perspective 30-1 on carbon dioxide emissions. Chapter 31: Clarified discussion of the payroll tax; inclusion of new CBO (1999) data on average tax rates of all Federal tax sources by income quintile.

• Part 8. Chapter 32: Pared the chapter by eliminating the discussion of industrial concentration and industrial policy; updated examples on antitrust, including the Microsoft case; revised section on industrial regulation for clarity and relevance to today’s regulatory and deregulatory climate; reorganized the discussion of social regulation. Chapter 33: New Figure 33-3 on U. S. farm exports as a percentage of farm output; new Figure 33-4 on which shows inflation-adjusted U. S. agricultural prices for selected commodities, 1950-1998; refocused Table 33-1 from farm population to farm employment; revised he discussion of the Freedom to Farm Act and emergency farm payments 1998-2000. Chapter 34: Reorganized discussion of income inequality and trends in income inequality; new discussion of the decline in the number of people on welfare; new discussion of the inequality of wealth. Chapter 35: Moved this chapter from Chapter 36 in the previous edition. Chapter 36: New issues discussed (patients’ bill of rights, prescription drug coverage under Medicare).

• Part 9. Chapter 37: Shortened this chapter; replaced the discussion of U. S. trade policy with a section on the WTO. Chapter 38: Eliminated the balance sheets in explaining the financing of export and import transactions; updated the discussion of the managed floating system in view of significant bailouts by the IMF and currency interventions by major countries; updated discussion of U.S. trade deficits. Chapter 39: New Figure 39-2 on projected population growth; new Global Perspective 39-1 showing data from Transparency International’s corruption index; new discussion on debt forgiveness.