The other challenge for us as instructors is to instill in students a sense of why the economic problems we analyze are important. We know that inflation and unemployment cause serious hardships. But most of our students haven’t experienced the income losses that accompany unemployment or seen their retirement savings decimated by inflation. We have to explain and illustrate why the macro problems we seek to solve are politically, socially, and economically important. The same reference gap exists in micro. Formulas and graphs illustrating externalities or lost consumer surplus are meaningless abstractions to most students. If we want them to appreciate these concepts, we have to illustrate them with real-world examples (e.g., the death toll from second-hand smoke; the higher airfares that result on monopoly airplane routes). For most students, this course is their first exposure to economics. If we want them to understand the subject—maybe even pursue it further— we have got to relate our concepts and theories to the world that they live in. This has been the hallmark of Essentials from the beginning: introducing the core concepts of economics in a reality-based, policy- driven context. This tenth edition continues that tradition

作为导师，我们面临的另一个挑战是向学生灌输为什么我们分析的经济问题很重要。我们知道通货膨胀和失业会造成严重的困难。但我们的大多数学生没有经历过失业带来的收入损失，也没有看到他们的退休储蓄因通货膨胀而缩水。我们必须解释和说明为什么我们寻求解决的宏观问题在政治、社会和经济上都很重要。同样的参考间隙存在于micro中。对于大多数学生来说，说明外部性或消费者剩余损失的公式和图表是毫无意义的抽象。如果我们想让他们理解这些概念，我们必须用现实世界的例子来说明（例如，二手烟造成的死亡人数；垄断航线上的更高机票价格）。对大多数学生来说，这门课是他们第一次接触经济学。如果我们想让他们理解这个主题，甚至可以更深入地研究它——我们必须把我们的概念和理论与他们所生活的世界联系起来。这从一开始就是Essentials的标志：在基于现实、政策驱动的背景下引入经济学的核心概念。第十版延续了这一传统