Modern Principles of Economics

Writing every chapter themselves gave the book one integrated voice. Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok write all of it, micro and macro, with no research assistants or junior authors, and they choose every picture.

Many two-author textbooks split micro and macro between authors, so the styles differ. Tyler compares it to Seinfeld, who was on every part of the show, which made it integrated.

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Opposite drafting styles meet in a version that is both rich and clear. Alex cuts a topic to its starkest situation and then adds bells and whistles. Tyler starts from the most complicated version and strips it down.

Alex's route lets him feel a first-time learner's confusion: if it isn't obvious to him, it won't be obvious to a student. Tyler's complexity is held in check by Alex's simplification. Alex's joke: if a post confuses you it is Tyler's, and if you understand it and are furious it is Alex's.

How I Write▶ 9:42

Write with a named, easily confused reader in mind. When Tyler writes anything for the textbook he thinks "oh, Alex is going to read that" and makes it simpler and clearer.

The imagined reader works as an editor before the draft is shared. Tyler jokes that his problem is he enjoys confusing students more.

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Heavy outside review sharpens chapters without bending them to everyone. Each chapter goes to about 40 referees. The authors take the feedback into account without trying to please everyone, and the textbook company has the final say.

Authors want a few people to love a book, while publishers want no one to hate it. Alex calls that tension useful.

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Treat Econ 101 as a direction toward the truth, not the whole truth. An intro course can't tell the whole truth, so it starts where students are and points them the right way, a vector rather than arrival at "capital T Truth".

Their image is climbing close to the top of a hill and seeing mountains in the distance to visit later. Many students then move on to the blog, where Tyler is happy they are confused every day.

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They wrote a blog before the textbook, and that order was right. Alex proposed a textbook; Tyler said to write a blog first. Marginal Revolution launched in August 2003 and passed 10,000 visitors within weeks.

The early posts were practice, and they didn't know anyone was reading. The blog now has 50,000 to 100,000 readers.

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Each part sends readers and improvements to the others. Years of explaining ideas on the blog improved the textbook, and the textbook sends readers back to the blog. Marginal Revolution University videos are free on YouTube with no ads.

MRU aimed to be in 25% of American high schools by 2025. India is already its number two market, and Google's automatic subtitles in about 100 languages let students learn English and economics at once.

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The videos started bare bones and grew once funding arrived. At first it was the two authors narrating a PowerPoint made with a $5 iPad app. Funding later paid for filming, animation and sound.

They wrote most scripts themselves or had them drawn from their text. Recording was far harder than scripting: many cuts yield 30 seconds to a minute of usable material.

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