Hello future AP Economics students,

As the school year comes to a close, I thought I’d send a short message to introduce myself and the other AP Econ teacher, Ms. Close (who many of you have had this year). We’re looking forward to a great year of econ next year; we think you will all find this class very interesting, exciting at times, and challenging always. If you do not know me or Ms. Close, please take a moment before school ends next week and introduce yourself, so we can put a face to your name!

As you likely know, AP Economics is a challenging course; it’s actually TWO challenging courses: one semester of Microeconomics and one of Macroeconomics. In fact, you will be sitting for not one but two AP exams in economics next May. To help prepare you for the first week of class, Ms. Close and I are asking you do complete a couple of simple tasks over the summer. No, we’re not giving you chapter from a text, and no you won’t be given a quiz on the first day of class; rather, we want to get an idea of what you already know about economics, and we want you to begin thinking like an economist before the first day of school next year.

Here’s your first assignment:

• Follow this link to your class Wiki, and complete the assignment as described on the page.
• Follow this link to your class Wiki, and read the course description and have a look at the course syllabuses for Micro and Macro.
• Finally, follow this link to Welker’s Wikinomics Blog and have a look at some of the articles posted this year, which will give you an idea of what kinds of things you’ll learn in AP Econ. If you feel confident, post some comments to articles that look interesting to you; feel free to share your opinions, ideas or thoughts about the topics covered. This is where we are going, by next spring you will understand almost everything posted at this site!

If you really want to impress me or Ms. Close, visit a bookstore or Amazon.com this summer and pick up one of the following titles. These are books about Econ written for someone who doesn’t know much about Econ. These are fun, entertaining, and very interesting books that demonstrate how economics can be used to understand the world around us.

Finally, have a great summer and do not hesitate to contact Mr. Welker or Ms. Close with any questions! welkerjason@yahoo.com and michelle.close@saschina.org. -Mr. W

• The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor–and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car! by Tim Harford. The newest and one of the best in the field, but with hardly any macro content
• Armchair Economist: Economics & Everyday Life . by Steven E. Landsburg. Unforgettably and deliberately provocative and counter-intuitive. Includes macro content, but often too divergent from our received AP curriculum
• Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life by David D. Friedman. The rather similar precursor to “Armchair,” written by Landsburg’s friend (and Milton’s son) David Friedman, using examples that he borrowed from Gary Becker had have been borrowed from them both by the other authors in this group
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner. The best-selling crowd-pleaser that has really very little to do with our subject, except for some creative examples of how econometrics can be used to answer interesting questions
• The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman. The best-selling update to “The Lexus and the Olive Tree,” chronicling the rapid and profound changes that technology has wrought on the world economy since the 1990s. There is no more important book for understanding how our lives are changing around us
• The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade by Pietra Rivoli. Not as interesting as it promises, but it illuminates a lot of economic history and issues of trade, interdependence, Asian development, and downsizing/outsourcing
• Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. I haven’t read it, and it seems to be very loosely connected to our course–except for one word of the title–but other teachers do assign it and recommend it, so here it is on their recommendation
• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. by Barbara Ehrenreich. Not my favorite, but often assigned in high-SES schools to alert students to the poverty they don’t know

Kudos to Economan at Squidoo.com for the book list!

About the author:  Jason Welker teaches International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement Economics at Zurich International School in Switzerland. In addition to publishing various online resources for economics students and teachers, Jason developed the online version of the Economics course for the IB and is has authored two Economics textbooks: Pearson Baccalaureate’s Economics for the IB Diploma and REA’s AP Macroeconomics Crash Course. Jason is a native of the Pacific Northwest of the United States, and is a passionate adventurer, who considers himself a skier / mountain biker who teaches Economics in his free time. He and his wife keep a ski chalet in the mountains of Northern Idaho, which now that they live in the Swiss Alps gets far too little use. Read more posts by this author

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