Beyond GDP: Integrating Sustainability Challenges and Policy Solutions into Principles of Macroeconomics

This project embeds sustainability concepts into Principles of Macroeconomics (ECON 204), a high-enrollment principles course taken by hundreds of students across disciplines each year. Students will leave understanding the environment as a precondition for economic stability — and macroeconomic policy as a tool for addressing the climate crisis. Concretely, this means developing a new unit on financial and environmental crises, short integrative inputs across existing units — from monetary policy to public debt — and a course introduction that situates the economy within planetary boundaries. By reaching students before they specialize, this approach can shape their understanding of the relationship between economic systems and sustainability.

Milena Dehn

Graduate Teaching Instructor