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In this lesson, students will examine the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the establishment of the unique structure and functions of the Federal Reserve System.

Federal individual income tax must be paid to the U.S. government, but the amounts paid vary widely. This issue of Page One Economics: Focus on Finance addresses basic facts about the tax—its history, purpose, and current structure.

Learn about the life and work of Dr. Sadie T.M. Alexander and how to think like an economist. Explore Dr. Alexander’s research on Black families during the Great Migration, practice asking BIG QUESTIONS and find the answers!

When regulating pollutants, is it more important to consider the science or the economics of the environment? Using the booming shale gas and oil industry as a case study, find out in the March 2019 Issue of Page One Economics how an understanding of the STEM fields and economics can be combined to create environmental policies that balance firm profits with environmental health.

In this lesson, students participate in a simulation using the idea of herd immunization to investigate the concept of positive externalities related to market failure and the role of government.

Is a natural disaster an economic boom or bust, or is it neither? In this issue of Page One, you will see how recovery happens after hurricanes, wildfires, and floods and how it effects economic growth.

Is public transportation a public good? How about national defense? Knowing the characteristics of public goods will help you understand why private firms excel at producing private goods, but they have little incentive to produce public goods. Rather, if society wants public goods, government must produce them. This episode of The Economic Lowdown defines the characteristics of private and public goods and explains why these characteristics help determine who is best positioned to produce each.

In 2012, the world faced a major financial crisis for the second time in five years. Whereas the first crisis in 2007-2008 was driven by excessive mortgage debt owed by households, the crisis in 2012 was driven by excessive government debt owed by entire countries. Waller first explored the reasons why a country’s ability to borrow to finance current spending can be very beneficial. However, since the rewards of borrowing are felt immediately and the pain is postponed until the future, it can be very tempting to borrow for short-term gains while downplaying the pain to come. As a result, debt burdens can rise to unsustainable levels, leading to crisis and austerity the tragedy of sovereign debt. In examining the reasons behind the current sovereign debt crisis in Europe, Waller explained the history of the formation of the European Union (EU), which focused on the creation of a monetary union, not a fiscal union. While it established five criteria for membership (concerning long-term interest rates, inflation, exchange rates, deficit-to-GDP and debt-to-GDP), no contingencies were made for a secession or ouster of a nation. In addition, when Greece won entry to the EU in 2000, it met none of the five criteria.Several “great shocks” in 2009 and 2010 then woke up the financial markets to the risk of default on European sovereign debt, which led to increased interest rates because financial markets no longer viewed Italian, Greek, Irish, Portuguese and Spanish debt as close substitutes for German bonds.Christopher Waller, senior vice president and director of Research, led the presentation and discussion on “Sovereign Debt: A Modern Greek Tragedy” on May 8, 2012, as part of the St. Louis Fed’s “Dialogue with the Fed” series. After his presentation, Waller and economists Christopher Neely and Fernando Martin took questions from the audience. The Q&A was moderated by Julie Stackhouse, senior vice president of Banking Supervision and Regulation.

William Emmons, vice president and economist, discussed “Bringing the Federal Deficit under Control” to audiences live in St. Louis and by videoconference in the Memphis Branch.

Vocabulary, vocabulary, vocabulary is the first step in learning a new discipline like economics or personal finance.We can help with that! Create and print flash cards, or have your students create and print their own, from more than 300 economics and personal-finance terms. Create flash cards for each new chapter or unit of study. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3.