Using a Simple Simulation Model to Help Students 'Think Like Economists' in Intermediate Macroeconomics

A decade ago, a national conference of macroeconomic educators called for fundamental reform in the teaching of intermediate macroeconomics, urging instructors to employ a single analytic framework rather than ‘responding to the fragmentation of macroeconomics by teaching a separate model for each school of thought’ (Erekson, Raynold and Salemi, 1996; Salemi and Siegfried, 1999). This paper describes the theoretical structure and learning applications of a simple, single-framework macroeconomic simulation model developed at Texas Christian University. When carefully integrated with other course activities, this computer-based learning tool can increase the intellectual value of intermediate macroeconomics by helping to strengthen students’ understanding of basic macroeconomic principles and the types of complex causality, interdependence and unintended consequences that arise in macroeconomic settings, i.e. students’ ability to ‘think like economists’ about macroeconomic phenomena.