McConnell and Brue's Microeconomics: Principles, Problems, and Policies is the leading Principles of Economics textbook because it is innovative and teaches students in a clear, unbiased way. The 17th Edition builds upon the tradition of leadership by sticking to 3 main goals: help the beginning student master the principles essential for understanding the economizing problem, specific economic issues, and the policy alternatives; help the student understand and apply the economic perspective and reason accurately and objectively about economic matters; and promote a lasting student interest in economics and the economy.

New Features

• Technology Advantage: McGraw-Hill aims to help instructors save time AND acknowledge that students study differently now. It is their goal to provide technology solutions that meet those goals. To that end, they have developed the following core set of products and services; Homework management, rich course cartridges, PrepCenter, iPod Content, and easy to use response system content, all described in detail below.
• Assessment-Ready Learning Objectives and Testing: Each chapter begins with measurable learning objectives. These learning objectives are cross-referenced to specific test bank questions to allow construction of measurement instruments. This direct link between objectives and content facilitates now common accreditation efforts necessary to meet assurance of learning requirements.
• New Internet Chapter: A new internet chapter covering "financial economics", along with a fully updated preexisting web chapter covering The Economics of Developing Countries (16Web), is available for free use at our website, www.mcconnell17.com. "Financial Economics" (Chapter 14Web), examines ideas such as compound interest, present value, arbitrage, risk, diversification, and the risk-return relationship.
• Consolidated Chapters: With overwhelming support of reviewers, the authors have consolidated the first two chapters of the prior edition into a single chapter, "Limits, Alternatives, and Choices" (Chapter 1). This new chapter quickly and directly moves the student into the subject matter of economics, demonstrating its methodology. We also combined the prior edition's separate chapters on fiscal policy and the public debt into single chapter, "Fiscal Policy, Deficits, and Debt" (Chapter 11). The topics are closely related, and consolidation integrates them into a smooth flow.
• Updated Consider This Boxes: These boxes are used to provide analogies, examples, or stories that help drive home central economic ideas in a student-oriented, real-world manner. New boxes include such disparate topics as fast food lines (Chapter 1), high European unemployment rates (Chapter 7), and the Fed as a sponge (Chapter 14).
• Updated Last Word Boxes: These applications and case studies are located toward the end of each chapter. In this edition, we have included photos to pique student interest. New or relocated Last Words include those on pitfalls to sound economic reasoning (Chapter 1), the diminishing impact of oil prices on the overall economy (Chapter 10), and an anecdote on supply side economics (Chapter 15), and many more
• New Web Button: We continue to integrate the book and our website with in-text web buttons that direct readers to website content. The authors have added a new web button consisting of a set of worked problems. Written by Norris Peterson of Pacific Lutheran University, these pieces consist of side-by-side computational questions and the computational procedures used to derive the answers.
• Contemporary Discussions and Examples: The seventeenth edition references and discusses many current topics. Examples: the economics of the war in Iraq, China's rapid growth rate, large Federal budget deficits, recent Fed monetary policy, the debate over inflation targeting, the productivity acceleration, rising oil prices, immigration impacts, large U.S. trade deficits, offshoring of American jobs, and many more.