Despite recent clarifications by central banks that it is indeed "commercial banks" that are the main creators of the money supply, money creation processes remain as confusing and opaque as ever to many. This article develops a simplified macro-visual diagram of today's money system based on the increasingly accepted "credit…

The 3-equation model by Carlin and Soskice (2014) introduces the current consensus in modern monetary macroeconomics to undergraduates through a static framework in which adjustment occurs via the monetary policy rule of an inflation-targeting central bank. In this article, the authors present a dynamic extension of this model and an Excel-based…

This paper provides details on a classroom experiment that focuses on returns to foreign assets given uncertain future exchange rates. Students are assigned the role of foreign analysts and decide how much to invest abroad given their expectations about future exchange rates. The experiment allows students to practice calculating the returns to…

In this article, the authors describe a classroom experiment on exchange rates appropriate for undergraduate courses in macroeconomics, international economics, and money and banking. Student teams compete by managing virtual portfolios of six foreign currencies over a period of several weeks. Trading requires a few minutes in class. Students gain…

The money creation and monetary policy chapters in the leading introductory textbooks commonly present an outdated and misleading approach that is now largely irrelevant. A preferable model would help students understand that money and monetary policy are about bank and household motives, the importance of capital, and the role of credit. An…

Over the course of one semester, six empirical assignments that utilize FRED are used to introduce students of money and banking courses to the economic analysis required for the conduct of monetary policy. The first five assignments cover the following topics: inflation, bonds and stocks, monetary aggregates, the Taylor rule, and employment.…

Video clips are an excellent way to enhance lecture material. Television commercials are a source of video examples that should not be overlooked and they are readily available on the internet. They are familiar, short, self-contained, constantly being created, and often funny. This paper describes several examples of television commercials that…

The Federal Reserve System (the Fed) is one of the most important financial institutions in the world. As the central bank of the United States, it influences the domestic money supply, credit, and interest rates with the goal of achieving stable prices and full employment for the world's largest economy. It provides a variety of services to…

The Federal Reserve System is the central bank of the United States. The system includes 12 Federal Reserve Banks (and their associated branches) located throughout the country, with oversight by the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. The diverse structure is designed to ensure that the interests of Main Street are represented along with those…

Introducing students to continental currency may well encourage their interest in the economic context of the Constitution and their understanding of a wide range of economic concepts. This brief article describes a lesson to familiarize students with continental currency and its relationship to Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution and the…

The emergence of Bitcoin as an online currency/payment system has been surrounded with controversy with equally passionate proponents and detractors arguing for its long-term viability. These debates lead to stimulating exercises for the finance or economics student eager to understand principles of money, currencies, and monetary economics. The…

The author provides a general model to incentivize student involvement in an economics course on an ongoing basis. Rather than presenting students with a discrete number of diverse experiments to illustrate different economic concepts, he opts for the adoption of a single experiment that lives for the duration of the semester. This approach…

The lessons learned from the recent financial crisis should significantly reshape the economics profession's thinking, including, importantly, what we teach our students. Five such lessons are that we live in a monetary economy and therefore aggregate demand and policies that affect aggregate demand are determinants of real economic outcomes; that…

Debates over how to promote a healthy economy are pervasive once more, after decades when it seemed such debates had been put to rest. The market meltdown of 2008 ended a long string of years in which monetary policy reigned supreme. Monetary policy is the regulation of money and the banking system to influence economic variables. Its adherents,…

The authors developed a classroom experiment on exchange rate determination appropriate for undergraduate courses in macroeconomics and international economics. In the experiment, students represent citizens from different countries and need to obtain currency to purchase goods. By participating in an auction to buy currency, students gain a…