GDP Center Launches Economics in Context Initiative (ECI)

We are pleased to announce the official launch of the GDP Center’s Economics in Context Initiative (ECI). The ECI team develops educational materials that are relevant to addressing some of the key issues of the twenty-first century including economic inequality, environmental sustainability, financial instability, globalization, and the changing nature of work.

Our textbooks include Microeconomics in Context, Macroeconomics in Context, Principles of Economics in Context (a two-semester text), Macroeconomics in Context: A European Perspective and the soon to be published Essentials of Economics in Context (covering both micro and macroeconomics in one semester). These texts take a contextual approach to understanding the economy by placing economic analysis in the broader social, environmental, historical and institutional contexts and promoting human well-being as the central goal of economics. Empirical data and policy relevance are emphasized to apply economics to real-world issues. Each textbook comes with a full complement of instructor and student resource materials including PowerPoint slides, lecture notes, and extensive test banks.

Our teaching modules are designed for use as stand-alone supplements to undergraduate and graduate level courses and are available as free downloadable PDFs. With this launch, we are happy to announce the publication of two new teaching modules:

• Debt and Deficit: Economic and Political Issues:  This module reviews the essentials of government budget, relates the facts about deficits and debts to key economic theories, and discusses policy responses to address government debt. It has been updated to take account of the impact of the 2017 tax cuts on recent and projected deficit increases.
• Alternatives to Growth-Centric Development: This module considers the problems of environmental degradation and inequality in relation to growth-centric development. Perspectives on alternatives to growth along with related policies, practices, and challenges are discussed to explain the need to limit economic activity to within the biophysical limits of the planet. The module features extensive case studies on alternative approaches in both the global North and South.

The ECI builds on over two decades of work done by the Global Development And Environment Institute (GDAE) at Tufts University to continue the production of introductory economics textbooks and teaching modules on social and environmental issues in economics. Various publications including books, working papers, and articles published by GDAE are now available on the ECI website. GDAE remains active at Tufts University, focused on environmental research activities and revisions of the text Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: A Contemporary Approach.

We invite you to find more about this initiative by visiting our website.