Hubbard and O'Brien provide extensive analysis of the financial events of the past few years. These events are sufficiently important to be incorporated into the body of the text rather than just added as boxed-off features. In particular, they stress the lesson policymakers recently learned the hard way: What happens in the ever-expanding part of the financial system that does not involve commercial banks is of vital importance to the entire economy.
This exciting text presents students with the underlying economic explanations of why the financial system is organized as it is and how the financial system is connected to the broader economy. Due to the overwhelming success of their principles of economics textbook, Hubbard and O'Brien have employed a similar approach in this textbook: They provide students with a framework that allows them to apply the theory that they learn in the classroom to the practice of the real world.
By learning this framework, students will understand not just the 2007—2009 financial crisis and other past events but also developments in the financial system during the years to come. To achieve this goal, they have built four advantages into this text:
1. A framework for understanding, evaluating, and predicting
2. A modern approach
3. Integration of international topics
4. A focus on the Federal Reserve