McGraw-Hill/Irwin knows that a textbook cannot remain the best-seller by standing still. Therefore, we are confident that you will be pleased when you see the many improvements we've made to the book in the 16^th Edition. These improvements include the following:

• DiscoverEcon with Paul Solman Videos:  The new DiscoverEcon is a course management and Economics discovery system that makes the tasks of learning and teaching Economics easier and fun. This enhanced version of DiscoverEcon includes over 250 minutes of video produced by Paul Solman, economics correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Build a syllabus of automatically graded exercises, essay questions, and graphing and video tutorials with our customizable course templates in a matter of minutes. Customize question sets to a particular page range; grade essay questions in your browser; and download student grades for easy import into your own grading spreadsheet or popular course management program.
• Contemporary Discussions and Examples:  The sixteenth edition contains discussions of many new or extended topics, including:
  • The economics of the war on terrorism
  • China's rapidly emerging economy
  • Corporate financial and accounting misconduct
  • The explosion of demand for DVD players, DVDs, and digital cameras
  • New marginal income tax brackets
  
  
• 'Consider This' Vignettes:  New to the book are 32 analogies, examples, or stories that help drive home central economic ideas in a student-oriented, real-world manner. These vignettes will not only entertain students, but will also help them see the relevance of the material and will motivate them to work harder.
  
  
• Revised Demand and Supply Chapter and Elasticity Chapter:  The authors have moved the discussion of price floors and price ceilings in Chapter 20 of the previous edition to Chapter 3 on demand and supply. Chapter 20 ("Elasticity of Demand and Supply") now has a tighter focus and also has room for new elasticity of supply applications that relate to antiques versus reproductions and to the volatile price of gold.
  
  
• Three Bonus Web Chapters, Including a Second Supply and Demand Chapter:  Three chapters are available free of charge at our website, http://www.mcconnell16.com. The first of these, "Applications and Extensions of Supply and Demand Analysis," is entirely new and provides real-world examples of changes in supply and demand, shortages and surpluses arising from pre-set prices, and overconsumption of nonpriced goods (or resources). The other two web chapters "The Economics of Developing Economies" (39Web) and "Transition Economies: Russia and China" (40Web, are also available for instructors and students who have a special interest in those topics.
  
  
• New Web Button Content:  We continue to link the book through web buttons to pedagogical features found at our website. Two types of icons appear throughout the book, (Interactive Graphs and Origin of the Idea) indicating that additional content on a subject can be found online. These Web Buttons allow further exploration of certain concepts without bogging down readers who aren't interested in them.
  
  
• Reduced Length: To make the book's exposition even tighter and smoother, the authors have removed some excess verbiage and the 16^th Edition is about 50 pages shorter than the last edition.