Real World Macro (43rd edition)

Edited by Ed Ford, Elizabeth T. Henderson, Luis Rosero, Bryan Snyder, Val Voorheis, and the Dollars & Sense collective

Edition: 43rd
Date of publication: July 2026
ISBN: 978-1-939402-91-2
Pages: 414
Price: $55.00

Real World Macro is a lively, thought-provoking supplement to introductory and intermediate macroeconomics textbooks. The new 43rd edition asks the big questions that standard textbooks try to avoid: What’s so great about growth? Is unemployment natural? Why should inequality matter?

Along with covering the basics—monetary and fiscal policy, productivity and investment, inflation, and unemployment—Real World Macro also includes new articles on increasing inequality, immigration, labor, and the climate crisis. Chapter introductions summarize the themes examined in each article, and discussion questions help students relate macroeconomic theories to the latest real-world issues. Real World Macro’s engaging articles are drawn from the pages of Dollars & Sense, the leading magazine of popular economics.

Praise for Real World Macro:

"The principles of economics books (yes, even mine) tend to be on the dull side and leave aspects of the economy and economics unchallenged. Real World Micro and Macro can spice up your course and lead students to ask the type of questions they should be asking." —DAVID COLANDER, Middlebury College

"Real World Macro’s topical applications of macroeconomic analysis provide the clear, condensed critical perspective lacking in most macroeconomics texts." —RICHARD D. WOLFF, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Note: This is the table of contents for the latest (42nd) edition of Real World Macro. If you are ordering a pdf of an earlier edition of this title, please ask your instructor for that edition's table of contents, and make sure you order your pdf using the URL your instructor gave you.

• Chapter 1: Perspectives on Macroeconomic Theory
  • Introduction
  • 1.1  "Everything Is Connected to Everything Else"
    Arthur MacEwan
  • 1.2  Military Keynesianism, Then and Now
    Richard Wolff
  • 1.3   From Nixonomics to Trumponomics
    Nick French
  • 1.4 What's Wrong with Neoliberalism?
    Robert Pollin
  • 1.5 Neoliberalism as Neocolonialism   
    Jayati Ghosh
  • 1.6How the Coronavirus Crisis Became an Economic Crisis
    Alejandro Reuss
  • 1.7 Opening Pandora’s Box: The Basics of Marxist Economics
    Alejandro Reuss
  • 1.8 Sharing the Wealth of the Commons
    Peter Barnes
    

• Chapter 2: Macroeconomic Measurement
  • Introduction
  • 2.1 What Does It Mean to Be "Better Off"?
    Zoe Sherman
  • 2.2 GDP and Its Discontents
    Alejandro Reuss
  • 2.3 The Underestimated “Price of Parenting”
    Nancy Folbre
  • 2.4 Measuring Economic Development
    Alejandro Reuss
  • 2.5 Undercounting the Poor
    Jeannette Wicks-Lim
    
  • 2.6 (Mostly) Useful Government Numbers About Poverty, Jobs, and Unemployment 
    Frank Stricker

• Chapter 3: Economic Growth and Business Cycles
  • Introduction
  • 3.1 Dating the Recession
    John Miller
  • 3.2 Growth, Growth, Growth: What Will Happen?
    Arthur MacEwan
  • 3.3 A Future for Growth—If We Choose It?
    Gerald Friedman
  • 3.4 Growing Together, Flying Apart
    Gerald Friedman
  • 3.5 Mass Deportations Drain Economic Growth    
    John Miller  
    

• Chapter 4: Unemployment and Labor
  • Introduction
  • 4.1 Where Have All the New Jobs Gone?
    John Miller
  • 4.2 Combating “Right-to-Work” Laws Across the South    
    Ed Ford     
  • 4.3 Is the Gender Pay Gap by Choice?
    Lynn Duggan
  • 4.4 Keeping Track of the Assault on Working People
    Ed Ford
    
  • 4.5 Wages, Immigration, and Unemployment   
    Arthur MacEwan  
  • 4.6 Who Will Work in a Warming World?
    Andrew Ahern
  • 4.7 AI-Driven Worker Displacement is a Serious Threat
    Holly Buck and Matt Huber

• Chapter 5: Inflation and the Cost of Living
  • Introduction
  • 5.1 The U.S. Care Affordability Crisis    
    Nancy Folbre
  • 5.2 Inflation and Inequality in Trump’s Economy 
    John Miller
  • 5.3 The Economic Environment of Gen Z 
    Meredith Troupe 
  • 5.4 The Price Increases That Matter for the Poor      
    Jayati Ghosh 
  • 5.5 The Inflation Reality and the Attack on Wages
    Arthur MacEwan 
  • 5.6 Inflation: The View from the Boardroom
    The Dollar & Sense Collective 

• Chapter 6: Wealth, Inequality, and Poverty
  • Introduction
  • 6.1 The American Dream, We Hardly Knew You
    John Miller
  • 6.2 Wealth, Inequality, and All That      
    Bill Barclay
  • 6.3 Geese, Golden Eggs, and Traps: Why Inequality Is Bad for the Economy
    Chris Tilly
  • 6.4 Death and Inequality      
    Arthur MacEwan
  • 6.5 Race Inequality, Class Inequality      
    Arthur MacEwan
  • 6.6 The Motherhood Gamble
    Nancy Folbre
  • 6.7 Control the Vampire Companies     
    Jayati Ghosh
  • 6.8 The Significance of Living Wages
    Ed Ford  
    
• Chapter 7: Fiscal Policy, Deficits, and Austerity
  • Introduction
  • 7.1 War Dollars, Care Dollars (and No Sense)
    Nancy Folbre
  • 7.2 A Trillion Dollars a Year, And No New Taxes    
    John Miller
  • 7.3 The Undertaxed Rich
    John Miller
  • 7.4 Reform of Global Taxation Cannot Wait     
    Jayati Ghosh
  • 7.5 Starving the Safety Net
    Kalena Thomhave
  • 7.6 Dirty Subsidies
    James K. Boyce
    7.7 Making America Poisoned Again
    James K. Boyce
  • 7.8 Rescued, Then Abandoned: The Elimination of the Child Tax Credit  
    Ed Ford
  • 7.9 The Economics of Trump’s War With Iran
    John Miller
    
    
• Chapter 8: Money and Monetary Policy
  • Introduction
  • 8.1 The Demise of the Dollar?
    Gerald Epstein  248
    8.2 What Is Money?     
    Doug Orr      252
    8.3 A Guide to Crypto
    Gerald Epstein   255
    8.4 The Tools of the Fed     
    John Miller     258
    8.5 Pushing on Strings    
          Gerald Friedman    280
    8.6 The Fed Versus Trump
    Robert Pollin   283
    8.7 The Fed’s 2% Inflation Target     
    John Miller     264
    8.8 The Fed and the Racial Wealth Gap    
    John Miller
    
• Chapter 9: Finance, Savings, and Investment
  • Introduction
  • 9.1 Financialization: A Primer
    Ramaa Vasudevan
  • 9.2 Bubble Bubble, Toil and Trouble
    Alejandro Reuss
    
  • 9.3 The Heavy, Unequal Burden of Student Debt
    Nick French
  • 9.4 The Private Equity Deception     
     Arthur MacEwan 

• Chapter 10: The Global Economy
  • Introduction
  • 10.1 Economists, the Trump Tariffs, and Alternatives
    Arthur MacEwan
  • 10.2 Trump Tariffs and Stagflation   
    Robert Pollin
  • 10.3 The Globalization Clock     
    Thomas Palley
  • 10.4 Does U.S. Prosperity Depend on Exploitation?       
    Arthur MacEwan
  • 10.5 Raw Materials and Raw Power
    Sasha Breger-Bush
  • 10.6 Credit Squeeze
    Justin Villamil

• Chapter 11: Resistance and Alternatives
  • Introduction
  • 11.1 $30 by 2030  
    Noah Ranz-Lind
  • 11.2 Minneapolis Labor and Community Fight ICE    
    Luis Feliz Leon

  • 11.4 Zohran Mamdani’s Bold Program for an Affordable New York City
    Nick French

  • 11.5 Something Is Wonderful in the State of Denmark  
    John Miller

  • 11.6 Worker Power Comes from Workers  
     Amanda Page-Hoongrajok

  • 11.7 A Fraction of What We Pay in Fossil Fuel Subsidies Could Fund a Just Transition    
    C.J. Polychroniou interviews Robert Pollin

  • 11.8 The Richmond Progressive Alliance Has Won Elections and Made City Hall Better for 20 Years 
    Steve Early