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In contrast to other readers in the Financial Markets and Institutions field, this Reader is updated annually. Sixteen of the forty-five articles in this latest edition of the Reader are new. Seven articles were published in 2004 and nine in 2003. These include articles on electronic payments, yield curves, securitization, banking consolidation, pension insurance, social security restructuring, competition and fees in the mutual funds industry, the Taylor rule, sterilized foreign exchange intervention, inflation targeting, budget deficits and interest rates, and the contribution of monetary policy to declining economic volatility. No other reader in the field is as current, and this continues to be the case with the appearance of a new edition of the Reader every year.
A New Way to Teach Financial Markets and Institutions
Financial Markets and Institutions develops a unifying economic framework to organize students' thinking about financial markets and institutions so that they can make sense of, rather than be confused by, all the facts about our financial system. The confirmed strength of this approach, in contrast to the approach used in other textbooks that focus on a set of facts about financial institutions, is that it will not go out of date. Because this approach stresses lasting economic concepts, it allows instructors to discuss the latest developments . As part of this approach to teaching, instructors will want to use current articles in class to illustrate the economic forces that are driving changes in financial markets. This Reader is designed to make it easier for instructors to do this and keep their teaching current.
The numerous, current readings that appear annually in this and future editions of the Reader and the stress on economic analysis in the textbook provide a whole new way of teaching financial markets and institutions. This new approach makes it less likely that students will memorize a mass of facts that will be forgotten after the final exam and that soon become obsolete because of the rapid pace of financial innovation. Instead, they will have an understanding of the dynamism of our financial markets and institutions and will see that what they have learned applies to current developments in financial markets, illustrating the relevance of their course work.
Pedagogical Aids
Each part begins with a list of readings keyed to the textbook chapters to help instructors organize their courses. We suggest that instructors read through all the part introductions as they plan their courses to become aware of the various options for matching readings with the text chapters they assign.
Each reading is prefaced by a brief summary of its content, followed by a number of discussion questions which encourage students to think about how the reading relates to material in the text. Instructors may find these questions useful for class discussions of the reading or as written assignments in problem sets.
James W. Eaton
Department of Economics and Business
Bridgewater College
Bridgewater, Virginia 22812
jeaton@bridgewater.edu
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