Microeconomics Online | ECO 251 College Credit Course

Principles of Microeconomics

Intro to Microeconomics will show you how small individual choices shape today’s complex economic systems. In this course, you’ll explore what goes down at the wild intersection of money and humanity.

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Course curriculum

1. Course Overview & Learning Outcomes
1. Introduction
2. Chapter 1.1: What is Economics and Why is it Important?
3. Video: Scarcity
4. Video: Adam Smith
5. Video: Economies Of scale
6. Quiz 1.1
1. Determination
2. Quiz 1.2
1. Economists and Circular Flow Diagram
2. Video: Circular Flow Diagram
3. Video: John Maynard Keynes
4. Quiz 1.3
1. Traditional Economies and globalization rise
2. Video: Division of Labour
3. Video: Market Economy
4. Quiz 1.4
1. Video: What Economists Believe
2. Video: Do Economist Believe democracy is working?
1. Key Concepts and Summary
1. Introduction
1. The Budget Constraint, opportunity cost, Sunk cost
2. Video: The Budget Constraint: Alphonso’s Consumption Choice Opportunity Frontier
3. Video: Sunk Cost
4. Video: Diminishing Marginal Utility
5. Video: Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility
6. Video: The Concept of Opportunity Cost
7. Video: Calculation of Opportunity costs
8. Quiz 2.1
1. Understanding the Production Possibilities Frontier: Constraints, Efficiency, and Comparative Advantage
2. Video: The PPF and Comparative Advantage
3. Video: Building a production possibility curve
4. Video: Productive Efficiency
5. Quiz 2.2
1. Exploring Economic Decision-Making: Critiques, Tradeoffs, and the Role of Self-Interest
2. Video: Second Objection: People, Firms, and Society Should Not Act This Way
3. Video: The invisible hand and self interest
4. Key Concepts and Summary Chapter 2
5. Quiz 2.3
1. Understanding Demand, Supply, and Market Equilibrium
2. Quiz 3.1
1. Understanding Market Dynamics: Demand, Supply, and Equilibrium
2. Video: Demand Curve
3. Video: Increase in Demand
4. Video: Decrease in Demand
5. Quiz 3.1
1. Factors Influencing Demand and Supply: A Comprehensive Analysis
2. Video: Demand and supply shift left
3. Video: Shifts of supply to left
4. Video: Demand shifts left
5. Video: Shifts in supply
6. Video: Shifts in Demand
7. Quiz 3.2
1. Analyzing Market Equilibrium: A Four-Step Process
2. Quiz 3.3
1. Price Controls: Analyzing the Impact of Government Intervention on Market Equilibrium
2. Video: Price floor effect
3. Video: Price ceiling effect
4. Video: Price ceilings and Rent control
5. Quiz 3.4
1. Understanding Market Efficiency: Consumer Surplus, Producer Surplus, and the Impact of Price Controls
2. Video: Inefficiency of Price Floors and Price Ceilings
3. Video: Consumer Surplus, Producer Surplus, Social Surplus
4. Quiz 3.5
5. Key Concepts and Summary Chapter 3
1. Introduction to Elasticity
1. Understanding Price Elasticity of Demand and Supply: Calculations and Implications
2. Video: Elasticity of supply calculation
3. Video: Elasticity of supply Calculation
4. Video: Elasticity of Demand Calculation
5. Quiz 4.1
1. Understanding Extreme Cases of Elasticity: Zero, Infinite, and Constant Unitary Elasticity
2. Video: Short run versus Long Run
3. Video: Constant unitary elasticity of supply
4. Video: Constant Unitary elasticity of Demand
5. Quiz 4.2
1. The Impact of Elasticity on Revenue, Market Dynamics, and Tax Incidence
2. Video: Elasticity and Tax Incidence
3. Video: Passing along Higher Costs to Consumers
4. Quiz 4.3
1. Expanding the Scope of Elasticity: Applications Beyond Price and Quantity
2. Key Concepts and Summary Chapter 4
3. Quiz 4.4
1. Introduction
1. Labor and Consumer Markets: Demand, Supply, and Market Equilibrium
2. Video: Technology and Wage Inequality: The Four-Step Process
3. Video: The living wage
4. Quiz 5.1
1. Understanding Financial Markets: Demand, Supply, and the Impact of Interest Rates
2. Video: Credit card Market
3. Video: Price Ceilings in Financial Markets: Usury Laws
4. Quiz 5.2
1. Analyzing Market Dynamics: The Role of Supply, Demand, and Price Controls
2. Video: Increased Demand for nurses
3. Video: Impact of Decreasing Supply of Nurses between 2020 and 2030
4. Quiz 5.3
1. Maximizing Utility: Concepts, Calculations, and Consumer Decision-Making
2. Video: A Choice between Consumption Goods
3. Video: Marginal Loss and Marginal Gain of Utility
4. Video: Utility Maximization using the Basic method
5. Quiz 5.4
1. The Impact of Income, Prices, and Preferences on Consumer Choices: A Utility-Maximizing Approach
2. Video: The Foundations of a Demand Curve: An Example of Housing
3. Quiz 5.5
1. Behavioral Economics and Intertemporal Choices: Understanding Irrational Behavior in Financial Decision-Making
2. Key Concepts and Summary
3. Quiz 5.6
1. Introduction to Production, Costs, and Industry Structure
1. Understanding Costs and Profit: Explicit and Implicit Costs in Business Decisions
2. Quiz 6.1
1. Understanding Production Functions and Cost Structures
2. Video: Short run TP and CP
3. Quiz 6.2
1. Analyzing Production and Cost Structures
2. Video: How Output Affects Total Costs
3. Video: Different Types of Costs
4. Video: calculating fixed costs from TC and TVC
5. Video: Calculating AFC
6. Video: calculating ATC from TFC and TVC
7. Video: Video: Calculating TC from AFC and AVC
8. Quiz 6.3
1. Understanding Long Run and Short Run Production Functions
2. Video: Long Run Production Function
3. Video: Short Run Production Function
4. Quiz 6.4
1. Understanding Long-Run Production and Cost Behavior
2. Video: Technology and the cost of production
3. Video: The size and number of firms in Industry
4. Quiz 6.5
1. Key Concepts and Summary Chapter 6
1. Introduction
1. Understanding Perfect Competition: Characteristics, Firm Behavior, and Market Dynamics
2. Quiz 7.1
1. Profit Maximization and Shutdown Decisions in Perfectly Competitive Markets
2. Video: Total Cost and Total Revenue at the Raspberry Farm
3. Video: Comparing Marginal Revenue and Marginal Costs
4. Video: Marginal Revenues and Marginal Costs at the Raspberry Farm: Individual Farmer
5. Video: The Shutdown Point for the Raspberry Farm
6. Quiz 7.2
1. Market Dynamics: Entry, Exit, and Long-Run Equilibrium in Competitive Industries
2. Video: Exiting-The case of Radio shack
3. Quiz 7.3
1. Productive and Allocative Efficiency in Perfectly Competitive Markets: A Theoretical Benchmark
2. Quiz 7.4
1. Understanding Monopoly: Formation, Barriers, and Profit Maximization
2. Quiz 7.5
1. Barriers to Entry and the Formation of Monopolies
2. Video: Summing Up Barriers to Entry
3. Quiz 7.6
1. Monopoly Market Dynamics: Demand, Profit Maximization, and Efficiency
2. Video: Demand Curves Perceived by a Perfectly Competitive Firm and by a Monopoly
3. Quiz 7.7
1. Exploring Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly in Imperfectly Competitive Markets
2. Video: Profit Maximization
3. Video: Using MC and MR to maximize profits
4. Video: Marginal Revenue, Marginal Cost, Marginal and Total Profit
5. Video: Illustrating Profits at the HealthPill Monopoly
6. Quiz 7.8
1. Introduction
2. Monopolistic Competition
3. Oligopoly
4. Video: Oligopoly- Comparing Demand Curves
5. Video: How the monopolistic competitor maximizes profit
6. Video: Revenue and Cost Schedule
7. Video: Entry and Exit
8. Video: Prisoners Dilemma
9. Quiz 7.9
1. Introduction
1. Understanding Externalities and Market Failures: The Impact of Pollution and Social Costs
2. Video: Pollution as a Negative Externality
3. Video: A Supply Shift Caused by Pollution Costs
4. Quiz 8.1
1. Evaluating Command-and-Control Regulation: Successes and Challenges
2. Quiz 8.2
1. Market-Oriented Environmental Policies: Strategies for Pollution Control and Incentives for Sustainability
2. Video: A Pollution Charge
3. Video: How Marketable Permits Work
4. Quiz 8.3
1. Evaluating Environmental Protection: Costs, Benefits, and the Role of Ecotourism
2. Quiz 8.4
1. Balancing Economic Output and Environmental Protection: Analyzing Tradeoffs Using the Production Possibility Frontier
2. Video: The Tradeoff between Economic Output and Environmental Protection
3. Quiz 8.5
1. Introduction
1. Understanding Labor Markets: Demand, Competition, and Wage Determination
2. Video: Marginal Product of Labor
3. Video: Value of the Marginal Product of Labor
4. Video: The VMP Curve
5. Video: Marginal Revenue Product
6. Quiz 9.1
1. Understanding Monopsony Power and Wage Determination in Imperfectly Competitive Labor Markets
2. Video: The employment and Equilibrium Wage
3. Quiz 9.2
1. Understanding Labor Unions: Membership, Impact, and Decline
2. Video: Union Wage Negotiations
3. Quiz 9.3
1. Labor Market Dynamics in a Bilateral Monopoly: The Intersection of Union and Monopsony Power
2. Quiz 9.4
1. Earnings Gaps and Discrimination: Impact on Labor Markets and Public Policy
2. Quiz 9.5
1. Understanding U.S. Immigration: Historical Patterns, Economic Impact, and Reform Proposals
1. Introduction
1. Understanding Imperfect and Asymmetric Information in Markets
2. Video: Information Asymmetry
3. Quiz 10.1
1. Understanding Insurance: Mechanisms, Challenges, and Government Regulations
2. Video: How Insurance works
3. Video: Waiting for Death and Life Insurance.
4. Quiz 10.2
1. Financial Capital and Wealth Accumulation: Understanding Markets, Investments, and the 2007 Financial Crisis
2. Quiz 10.3
1. Raising Financial Capital: Strategies for Businesses and Households
2. Video: Bonds
3. Video: Mutual Funds
4. Video: Deposit Accounts
5. Video: Risk, return and Liquidity
6. Quiz 10.4
1. The Mechanics of Financial Capital and the 2007 Financial Crisis
2. Quiz 10.5
1. Key Concepts and Summary 10
1. Introduction
1. Understanding Comparative and Absolute Advantage: The Economic Benefits of Trade
2. Video: Production possibilities before Trade Part A
3. Video: Production possibilities before Trade Part B
4. Video: Opportunity cost and comparative Advantage
5. Video: Calculating comparative Advantage
6. Video: Absolute Advantage
7. QUIZ 11.1
1. Understanding Comparative Advantage and Gains from Trade
2. QUIZ 11.2
1. Intra-Industry Trade and Dynamic Comparative Advantage: Understanding Global Trade Patterns
2. Video: How specialization Expands Production
3. Video: Gains from Trade
4. Video: Economies of Scale
5. QUIZ 11.3
1. Understanding Tariffs, Trade Barriers, and the Global Benefits of International Trade
2. QUIZ 11.4
1. Key Concepts and Summary Chapter 11
1. Introduction
1. Understanding Protectionism and Its Economic Impact
2. QUIZ 12.1
1. International Trade: Impacts on Jobs, Wages, and Labor Standards
2. QUIZ 12.2
1. Arguments for Restricting Imports and the Impacts of Protectionism
2. Quiz 12.3
1. Global Trade Dynamics: Understanding the Evolution of WTO, GATT, and Regional Trade Agreements
2. QUIZ 12.4
1. Navigating the Complexities of International Trade and Market Disruption
2. QUIZ 12.5
1. Key Accounts and Summary Chapter 12
1. Assignment
2. Rubrics for all Questions
1. Final Exam: Instructions (Important)
2. Final Exam

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Economics 251: Microeconomics

CHAPTER 1 - Welcome to Economics!

Ch 1.2 Microeconomics and Macroeconomics

Ch 1.3 How Economists Use Theories and Models to Understand Economic Issues

Ch 1.4 How To Organize Economies: An Overview of Economic Systems

Extra Videos of Chapter 1

Key Concepts and Summary Chapter 1

CHAPTER 2 - Choice in a World of Scarcity

Ch 2.1 - How Individuals Make Choices Based on Their Budget Constraint

Ch 2.2 - The Production Possibilities Frontier and Social Choices

Ch 2.3 - Confronting Objections to the Economic Approach

Ch 3-Demand and Supply

Ch 3.1-Demand, Supply, and Equilibrium in Markets for Goods and Services

Ch 3.2- Shifts in Demand and Supply for Goods and Services

Ch 3.3 -Changes in Equilibrium Price and Quantity: The Four-Step Process

Ch 3.4 - Price Ceilings and Price Floors

Ch 3.5 - Demand, Supply, and Efficiency

CHAPTER 4 - Elasticity

Ch 4.1 - Price Elasticity of Demand and Price Elasticity of Supply

Ch 4.2 - Polar Cases of Elasticity and Constant Elasticity

Ch 4.3 - Elasticity and Pricing

Ch 4.4 - Elasticity in Areas Other Than Price

CHAPTER 5- Consumer Choices and Labor and Financial Markets

Ch 5.1 - Demand and Supply at Work in Labor Markets

Ch 5.2 -Demand and Supply in Financial Markets

Ch 5.3 - The Market System as an Efficient Mechanism for Information

Ch 5.4 -Consumption Choices

Ch 5.5 -How Changes in Income and Prices Affect Consumption Choices

Ch 5.6 - How Consumer Choices Might Not Always be Rational

CHAPTER 6 -Production, Costs, and Industry Structure

Ch 6.1 - Explicit and Implicit Costs, and Accounting and Economic Profit

Ch 6.2 - Production in the Short Run

Ch 6.3 - Costs in the Short Run

Ch 6.4 - Production in the Long Run

Ch 6.5-Costs in the Long Run

Key Concepts and Summary

CHAPTER 7 Market Structures in Economics

Ch 7.1 - Perfect Competition and Why It Matters

Ch 7.2 -How Perfectly Competitive Firms Make Output Decisions

Ch 7.3 - Entry and Exit Decisions in the Long Run

Ch 7.4 -Efficiency in Perfectly Competitive Markets

Ch 7.5 - Introduction to Monopoly

Ch 7.6 - How Monopolies Form: Barriers to Entry

Ch 7.7 -How a Profit-Maximizing Monopoly Chooses Output and Price

Ch 7.8 - Introduction to Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly

Ch 7.9 - Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly

CHAPTER 8 - Environmental Protection, Negative Externalities, Positive Externalities, and Public Goods

Ch 8.1 - The Economics of Pollution

Ch 8.2 - Command-and-Control Regulation

Ch 8.3 - Market-Oriented Environmental Tools

Ch 8.4 -The Benefits and Costs of U.S. Environmental Laws

Ch 8.5 -The Tradeoff between Economic Output and Environmental Protection

CHAPTER 9 - Labor Markets and Income

CH 9.1 - The Theory of Labor Markets

Ch 9.2-Wages and Employment in an Imperfectly Competitive Labor Market

Ch 9.3 -Market Power on the Supply Side of Labor Markets: Unions

Ch 9.4 - Bilateral Monopoly

Ch 9.5 -Employment Discrimination

Ch 9.6 -Immigration

CHAPTER 10 -Information, Risk, and Insurance in Financial Markets

Ch 10.1 -The Problem of Imperfect Information and Asymmetric Information

Ch 10.2 -Insurance and Imperfect Information

Ch 10.3 - Introduction to Financial Markets

Ch 10.4 -How Businesses Raise Financial Capital

Ch 10.5 -How to Accumulate Personal Wealth

Key Concepts and Summary Chapter 10

CHAPTER 11-International Trade

Ch 11.1-Absolute and Comparative Advantage

Ch 11.2-What Happens When a Country Has an Absolute Advantage in All Goods

Ch 11.3- Intra-Industry Trade between Similar Economies

Ch 11.4-The Benefits of Reducing Barriers to International Trade

Key Concepts and Summary

CHAPTER 12- Globalization and Protectionism

Ch 12.1-Protectionism: An Indirect Subsidy from Consumers to Producers

Ch 12.2-International Trade and Its Effects on Jobs, Wages, and Working Conditions

Ch 12.3-Arguments in Support of Restricting Imports

Ch 12.4-How Governments Enact Trade Policy: Globally, Regionally, and Nationally

Ch 12.5-The Tradeoffs of Trade Policy

Key Concepts and Summary

ASSIGNMENT