Microeconomics Interactive
Macroeconomics Interactive

Michael Parkin

Michael Parkin studied economics in England and began his university teaching career immediately after graduating with a BA from the University of Leicester. He learned the subject on the job at the University of Essex, England’s most exciting new university of the 1960s, and at the age of 30 became one of the youngest full professors. He is a past president of the Canadian Economics Association and has served on the editorial boards of the American Economic Review and the Journal of Monetary Economics. His research on macroeconomics, monetary economics, and international economics has resulted in more than 160 publications in journals and edited volumes, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Monetary Economics, and the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking. He is author of the best-selling textbook, Economics (Pearson), now in its 12th Edition.

Robin and Michael are a wife-and-husband team. Their most notable joint research created the Bade-Parkin Index of central bank independence and spawned a vast amount of research on the topic. They don’t claim credit for the independence of the new European Central Bank, but its constitution and the movement toward greater independence of central banks around the world were aided by their pioneering work. Their joint textbooks include Macroeconomics (Prentice-Hall), Modern Macroeconomics (Pearson Education Canada), and Economics: Canada in the Global Environment, the Canadian adaptation of Parkin, Economics (Addison-Wesley). They are dedicated to the challenge of explaining economics ever more clearly to a growing body of students. Music, the theater, art, walking on the beach, and five grandchildren provide their relaxation and fun.

Robin Bade

Robin Bade was an undergraduate at the University of Queensland, Australia, where she earned degrees in mathematics and economics. After a spell teaching high school math and physics, she enrolled in the PhD program at the Australian National University, from which she graduated in 1970. She has held faculty appointments at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland; at Bond University in Australia; and at the Universities of Manitoba, Toronto, and Western Ontario in Canada. Her research on international capital flows appears in the International Economic Review and the Economic Record. Robin first taught a principles of economics course in 1970 and has continued to teach it (alongside intermediate macroeconomics and international trade and finance) most years since then. She developed many of the ideas found in this text while conducting tutorials with her students at the University of Western Ontario.

Jeff Sarbaum

Jeff Sarbaum, senior lecturer of economics, University of North Carolina Greensboro, has over 20 years of university teaching experience and has been engaged in online education for over 10 years. He has developed numerous innovative graduate and undergraduate online courses, integrating traditional pedagogy with new modalities and technologies. He has been nominated for the UNCG Excellence Award in Online Education and been invited to speak about his work at numerous conferences, including a keynote presentation at a Duke University Instructional Technology Showcase. Dr. Sarbaum has served on the UNCG Bryan School of Business and Economics Committee on Online Learning, and is currently a member of the UNCG Faculty Senate Online Learning Committee. His research and publications focus on the use of effective online pedagogy and the development of assessment protocols. He is a recipient of the UNCG Excellence Award for Student Learning Enhancement and Co-PI of a project funded by the National Science Foundation to develop online modules that teach mathematics skills in the context of economics.