Chapter 18

Chapter 18 is titled “open-economy Macroeconomics: basic concepts.” My three favorite margins notes are…

1. I highlighted section e1 titled “summing up” because it summarized the lesson that had been taught to that point in the textbook in a more simplified version. This was a great way to be able to check that I was understanding the material I had learned to that point because I feel like it can be very challenging to retain so much information and that I’m not always sure what I understand and what I don’t. This separated everything into three parts: trade deficit, surplus, and balanced trade.
2. I also highlighted the end of section 1c titled “the equality of net exports and net capital outflow” for a similar reason as my first note because I feel that it did a good job of summarizing the section. I was a bit confused by the concepts in this section and found that I had to reread it a few times and even look up some of the previous terms to understand it. The part I highlighted are two bullet points which introduce trade deficit and trade surplus that provides a simplified equation and an example.
3. Finally I highlighted the last paragraph in section 2b titled “real exchange rates” which gives another description of depreciation and appreciation how they relate to individuals and how they influence and are affected by the changes in trade. I found this section very helpful because it summarizes the section and also gives an example that I can personally relate to and shows my relationship to what is being taught.

These were the notes that I found most useful, however, the other ones that I have taken on this section mostly consist of equations, definitions, and examples.