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Course Content
Topic outline
General
Introduction and basic concepts
Introduction and basic concepts
- Scarcity Page
- Scarcity and rivalry Page
- Four factors of production Page
- Economic models Page
- Normative and positive statements Page
- Property rights in a market system Page
- Markets and property rights Page
- Production possibilities curve Page
- Opportunity cost Page
- Increasing opportunity cost Page
- PPCs for increasing, decreasing and constant opportunity cost Page
- Comparative advantage, specialization, and gains from trade Page
- Comparative advantage and absolute advantage Page
- Opportunity cost and comparative advantage using an output table Page
- Terms of trade and the gains from trade Page
- Input approach to determining comparative advantage Page
- When there aren't gains from trade Page
- Comparative advantage worked example Page
- Quiz
Supply, demand and market equilibrium
Supply, demand and market equilibrium
- Law of demand Page
- Market demand as the sum of individual demand Page
- Substitution and income effects and the law of demand Page
- Price of related products and demand Page
- Change in expected future prices and demand Page
- Changes in income, population, or preferences Page
- Normal and inferior goods Page
- Inferior goods clarification Page
- Law of supply Page
- Change in supply versus change in quantity supplied Page
- Factors affecting supply Page
- Market equilibrium Page
- Changes in market equilibrium Page
- Changes in equilibrium price and quantity when supply and demand change Page
Elasticity
Elasticity
- Introduction to price elasticity of demand Page
- Price elasticity of demand using the midpoint method Page
- More on elasticity of demand Page
- Determinants of price elasticity of demand Page
- Determinants of elasticity example Page
- Perfect inelasticity and perfect elasticity of demand Page
- Constant unit elasticity Page
- Total revenue and elasticity Page
- More on total revenue and elasticity Page
- Elasticity and strange percent changes Page
- Introduction to price elasticity of supply Page
- Elasticity of supply using a different method Page
- Price elasticity of supply determinants Page
- Income elasticity of demand Page
- Cross-price elasticity of demand Page
Consumer and producer surplus, market interventions, and international trade
Consumer and producer surplus, market interventions, and international trade
- Demand curve as marginal benefit curve Page
- Consumer surplus introduction Page
- Total consumer surplus as area Page
- Producer surplus Page
- Equilibrium, allocative efficiency and total surplus Page
- Rent control and deadweight loss Page
- Minimum wage and price floors Page
- How price controls reallocate surplus Page
- Taxation and dead weight loss Page
- Example breaking down tax incidence Page
- Percentage tax on hamburgers Page
- Taxes and perfectly inelastic demand Page
- Taxes and perfectly elastic demand Page
- Changing equilibria from trade Page
- Trade and tariffs Page
- Example on tariffs and trade Page
Consumer theory
Consumer theory
- Marginal utility and total utility Page
- Visualizing marginal utility MU and total utility TU functions Page
- Utility maximization: equalizing marginal utility per dollar Page
- Deriving demand curve from tweaking marginal utility per dollar Page
- Utility maximization: equalizing marginal utility per dollar Page
- Marginal utility free response example Page
- Budget line Page
- Indifference curves and marginal rate of substitution Page
- Optimal point on budget line Page
- Types of indifference curves Page
Production decisions and economic profit
Production decisions and economic profit
- Introduction to production functions Page
- Total product, marginal product, and average product Page
- Fixed, variable, and marginal cost Page
- Marginal cost, average variable cost, and average total cost Page
- Graphs of MC, AVC and ATC Page
- Marginal revenue and marginal cost Page
- Marginal revenue below average total cost Page
- How costs change when fixed and variable costs change Page
- Graphical impact of cost changes on marginal and average costs Page
- Visualizing average costs and marginal costs as slope Page
- Long-run average total cost curve Page
- Economies and diseconomies of scale Page
- Minimum efficient scale and market concentration Page
- Economic profit vs accounting profit Page
- Depreciation and opportunity cost of capital Page
- Long term supply curve and economic profit Page
- Profit maximization Page
- Profit maximization worked example Page
- Shutting down or exiting industry based on price Page
- Long-run economic profit for perfectly competitive firms Page
- Long run supply when industry costs aren't constant Page
- Example on perfect competition Page
Forms of competition
Forms of competition
- Introduction to perfect competition Page
- Economic profit for firms in perfectly competitive markets Page
- Long-run economic profit for perfectly competitive firms Page
- Long-run supply curve in constant cost perfectly competitive markets Page
- Long run supply when industry costs aren't constant Page
- Example on perfect competition Page
- Perfect and imperfect competition Page
- Types of competition and marginal revenue Page
- Marginal revenue and marginal cost in imperfect competition Page
- Monopolies vs. perfect competition Page
- Economic profit for a monopoly Page
- Monopolist optimizing price: Total revenue Page
- Monopolist optimizing price: Marginal revenue Page
- Monopolist optimizing price: Dead weight loss Page
- Review of revenue and cost graphs for a monopoly Page
- Optional calculus proof to show that MR has twice slope of demand Page
- Price discrimination Page
- Monopoly price discrimination Page
- Oligopolies and monopolistic competition Page
- Monopolistic competition and economic profit Page
- Long run economic profit for monopolistic competition Page
- Oligopolies, duopolies, collusion, and cartels Page
- Prisoners' dilemma and Nash equilibrium Page
- More on Nash equilibrium Page
- Why parties to cartels cheat Page
- Game theory of cheating firms Page
Factor markets
Factor markets
- A firm's marginal product revenue curve Page
- How many people to hire given the MPR curve Page
- Introduction to labor markets Page
- Labor-leisure tradeoff and the labor supply curve Page
- Adding demand curves Page
- Changes in labor supply Page
- Shifts in the demand for labor Page
- Cost minimizing choice of inputs Page
- Factor markets worked example Page
- A monopsonistic market for labour Page
- Monopsony employers and minimum wages Page
Market failure and the role of government
Market failure and the role of government
- Allocative efficiency and marginal benefit Page
- Negative externalities Page
- Positive externalities Page
- Taxes for factoring in negative externalities Page
- Tragedy of the commons Page
- Rival and excludable goods Page