Written with liberal arts and general education students in mind, Principles of Economics: An Incentives- and Examples-Based Approach to the Consequences of Economic Decisions is designed to introduce students to foundational concepts in economics. The text uses examples that are relevant and thought-provoking to provide students with a solid understanding of the basics of economic theory and applications. The book is divided into three sections. Section 1 is dedicated to foundational knowledge with chapters that explore incentives and scarcity, supply and demand, market control, price elasticity, revenue, and tax burden. Section 2 explores rational and irrational human behavior, firm production, market structure, and game theory. Section 3 speaks to national income, price, money, and engaging in global trade. These chapters contain information on gross domestic product, the consumer price index, business cycles, unemployment, fiscal and monetary policy, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and more. Approachable and effective, Principles of Economics helps students explore the basic concepts that make up the very core of modern economics. The text is well suited for undergraduate courses in economics and business. Anthony Noce earned his B.S. in biochemistry, M.A. in economics, and Ph.D. in pure science (economics and chemistry) from Concordia University. He has been a professor in the Department of Economics and Finance at the State University of New York - Plattsburgh since the 2014-2015 academic year. In 2017, after only three years of teaching at SUNY Plattsburgh, Dr. Noce was honored with SUNY Plattsburgh's prestigious Teacher Excellence Award. Dr. Noce joined SUNY Plattsburgh after working as a senior economist for the Government of Canada. He spent 12 years working for three federal government departments -- Health, Industry, and Fisheries and Oceans -- where he was responsible for a variety of economic and policy files. He also served as a delegate for the Canadian government at the Organization for Cooperation and Development (OECD), Paris, France, participating in the development of the first surveys on information and communication technologies. Dr. Noce has also taught at Castleton University, in Vermont, USA; Concordia University and Marianopolis College, in Quebec, Canada; and Algonquin College, in Ontario, Canada. His areas of academic expertise include principles of economics, introductory microeconomics and macroeconomics, intermediate macroeconomic theory, business statistics, environmental and ecological economics, sustainability, and econometrics and multivariate statistics.

Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.

Should the idea of economic man—the amoral and self-interested Homo economicus—determine how we expect people to respond to monetary rewards, punishments, and other incentives? Samuel Bowles answers with a resounding “no.” Policies that follow from this paradigm, he shows, may “crowd out” ethical and generous motives and thus backfire. But incentives per se are not really the culprit. Bowles shows that crowding out occurs when the message conveyed by fines and rewards is that self-interest is expected, that the employer thinks the workforce is lazy, or that the citizen cannot otherwise be trusted to contribute to the public good. Using historical and recent case studies as well as behavioral experiments, Bowles shows how well-designed incentives can crowd in the civic motives on which good governance depends.

In recent years there have been increasing efforts to use accountability systems based on large-scale tests of students as a mechanism for improving student achievement. The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is a prominent example of such an effort, but it is only the continuation of a steady trend toward greater test-based accountability in education that has been going on for decades. Over time, such accountability systems included ever-stronger incentives to motivate school administrators, teachers, and students to perform better. Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education reviews and synthesizes relevant research from economics, psychology, education, and related fields about how incentives work in educational accountability systems. The book helps identify circumstances in which test-based incentives may have a positive or a negative impact on student learning and offers recommendations for how to improve current test-based accountability policies. The most important directions for further research are also highlighted. For the first time, research and theory on incentives from the fields of economics, psychology, and educational measurement have all been pulled together and synthesized. Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education will inform people about the motivation of educators and students and inform policy discussions about NCLB and state accountability systems. Education researchers, K-12 school administrators and teachers, as well as graduate students studying education policy and educational measurement will use this book to learn more about the motivation of educators and students. Education policy makers at all levels of government will rely on this book to inform policy discussions about NCLB and state accountability systems.