• Microeconomics
  • Macroeconomics
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Microeconomics Unit Catalog - Includes 165 Videos


The Basics of Economics

What is economics? Many will tell you that economics is about making choices in conditions of scarcity; others will tell you that it is about making decisions on the margins, and a few will tell you that those two answers are the same.

Units include:

How Income Flows - Households and Firms

Opportunity Cost vs Choice

Production Possibility Frontier

Production Possibility Curve

Public Goods


Market Forces - Supply and Demand

The demand curve can show a single individual's demand for a good or it can show many individuals’ aggregate demand for a good. The supply curve shows a positive relationship between the quantity of a good sold and the price at which it is sold.

Units include:

Supply Curve

Giffen Goods

Demand Curve


Market Forces - Equilibrium

Market Equilibrium occurs when the market price reaches a level at which quantity supplied equals quantity demanded.

Units include:

Market Equilibrium

Case Study - Green Space and Equilibrium


Elasticity

When prices change, the quantity that consumers buy will also change. When prices increase, consumers purchase less; the quantity demanded decreases. The question is, by how much?

Units include:

Price Elasticity of Demand

Income Elasticity of Demand

Cross-Price Elasticity of Demand


Marginal Utility

When consumers consume various quantities of a particular good, they realize different levels of utility from that consumption.

Units include:

Diminishing Marginal Utility

Case Study - Diminishing Marginal Utility


Consumer Choice

One of the goals of economics is to understand how people make decisions about what to buy and consume. To do this, economists have developed a model of consumer choice called the utility maximization framework.

Units include:

Indifference Curves

Maximizing Utility with a Budget

Producer Surplus Consumer Surplus


Producer Behavior

One of the important subjects in economics is international trade. In today's world economy, it is very important to understand why international trade happens. About two thirds of all international trade happens because of comparative advantage.

Units include:

Comparative Advantage and International Trade

Production Possibility Frontier


Price

How do firms and businesses decide how to price things? How do these prices affect demand?

Units include:
Elasticity of Supply
Price Intervention
Price Discrimination
Price Collusion


Costs of Production

Every business, large or small, needs to understand its cost of production to operate efficiently and effectively maximize profit.

Units include:

Costs of Production

Marginal Product

Marginal Cost and Average Fixed Cost

Declining Average Cost


Labor Markets

Why does a firm hire a worker? What questions does a firm have to ask to decide if they should hire a worker? Why would a single employer pay two different people different wages to do what seems like the same job, or to perform the same task?

Units include:

The Firm's Hiring Decision

Why Wages Vary


Negative Externalities and Taxes

A negative externality is a cost that an economic transaction imposes upon an uninvolved third party. Consumption causes some negative externalities. Production causes others. Taxation is one solution. Taxes also affect prices.

Units include:

Negative Externality

Taxes


Market Structures - Introduction

In this unit we review the four traditional market structures that we use in industrial organization or industry analysis.

Units include:

Four Market Structures

Case Study - Gas Stations


Perfect Competition

The characteristics of perfect competition: There are many buyers and sellers; Goods are homogeneous; Firms are price takers; Firms freely enter and exit the market.

Units include:

Perfect Competition - Introduction

Perfect Competition - Profit Scenario

Perfect Competition - Minimizing Losses

Perfect Competition - Shutdown Scenario

Perfect Competition - Supply and Demand


Monopoly

A monopoly, by definition, is a market structure with only one seller and no close substitutes.

Units include:

Monopoly - Introduction

Natural Monopoly


Monopolistic Competition

If you consider the firms where you shop most frequently and the firms that advertise the most, many of them are in a market that we describe as monopolistic competition.

Units include:

Monopolistic Competition Introduction

Monopolistic Competition Dynamics

Monopolistic Competition Equilibrium


Oligopoly

The first assumption that we make about an oligopoly is that there are few firms. This contrasts with perfect competition where there are many firms, and with monopoly, where there is just a single firm.

Units include:

Oligopoly - Introduction

Case Study - Airlines vs. OPEC