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Microeconomics
How individuals, firms, and markets make decisions. Supply, demand, pricing, and competition explained in a way that changes how you see everyday choices.
What You'll Learn
A full semester of microeconomics — completed at your own pace, with no deadlines or fixed class times.
What You'll Be Able to Do
- Develop an in-depth understanding of core microeconomic principles, focusing on their real-world applications and implications for business strategy
- Grasp and critically evaluate key concepts like scarcity, supply and demand, and consumer behavior, linking these to producer decision-making and market dynamics
- Analyze the role of technology and government intervention in shaping economic landscapes, assessing their impacts on business operations and market structures
- Build proficiency in analyzing complex economic scenarios, applying microeconomic theories to facilitate strategic and informed business decisions; explore the nuances of various market structures and their influence on resource allocation and competitive strategies
- Gain a comprehensive perspective on the regulatory environment, including taxation, trade policies, and antitrust laws, and their effects on business and economic activities
Major Course Topics
Course chapters and lessons
Microeconomics has 12 chapters across 66 instructional hours, as listed in the course syllabus. Expand any chapter to see the lessons inside it.
- Chapters
- 12
- Lessons
- 61
- Instructional hours
- 66 hrs
- Semester hours
- 3
Chapter 1
Welcome to Economics!
- 1.1 What is Economics and Why is it Important?
- 1.2 Microeconomics and Macroeconomics
- 1.3 How Economists Use Theories and Models to Understand Economic Issues
- 1.4 How To Organize Economies: An Overview of Economic Systems
Chapter 2
Choice in a World of Scarcity
- 2.1 How Individuals Make Choices Based on Their Budget Constraint
- 2.2 The Production Possibilities Frontier and Social Choices
- 2.3 Confronting Objections to the Economic Approach
Chapter 3
Demand and Supply
- 3.1 Demand, Supply, and Equilibrium in Markets for Goods and Services
- 3.2 Shifts in Demand and Supply for Goods and Services
- 3.3 Changes in Equilibrium Price and Quantity: The Four-Step Process
- 3.4 Price Ceilings and Price Floors
- 3.5 Demand, Supply, and Efficiency
Chapter 4
Elasticity
- 4.1 Price Elasticity of Demand and Price Elasticity of Supply
- 4.2 Polar Cases of Elasticity and Constant Elasticity
- 4.3 Elasticity and Pricing
- 4.4 Elasticity in Areas Other Than Price
Chapter 5
Consumer Choices and Labor and Financial Markets
- 5.1 Demand and Supply at Work in Labor Markets
- 5.2 Demand and Supply in Financial Markets
- 5.3 The Market System as an Efficient Mechanism for Information
- 5.4 Consumption Choices
- 5.5 How Changes in Income and Prices Affect Consumption Choices
- 5.6 How Consumer Choices Might Not Always Be Rational
Chapter 6
Production, Costs, and Industry Structure
- 6.1 Explicit and Implicit Costs, and Accounting and Economic Profit
- 6.2 Production in the Short Run
- 6.3 Costs in the Short Run
- 6.4 Production in the Long Run
- 6.5 Costs in the Long Run
Chapter 7
Market Structures in Economics
- 7.1 Perfect Competition and Why It Matters
- 7.2 How Perfectly Competitive Firms Make Output Decisions
- 7.3 Entry and Exit Decisions in the Long Run
- 7.4 Efficiency in Perfectly Competitive Markets
- 7.5 Introduction to Monopoly
- 7.6 How Monopolies Form: Barriers to Entry
- 7.7 How a Profit-Maximizing Monopoly Chooses Output and Price
- 7.8 Introduction to Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly
- 7.9 Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly
Chapter 8
Environmental Protection, Negative Externalities, Positive Externalities, and Public Goods
- 8.1 The Economics of Pollution
- 8.2 Command-and-Control Regulation
- 8.3 Market-Oriented Environmental Tools
- 8.4 The Benefits and Costs of U.S. Environmental Laws
- 8.5 The Tradeoff between Economic Output and Environmental Protection
Chapter 9
Labor Markets and Income
- 9.1 The Theory of Labor Markets
- 9.2 Wages and Employment in an Imperfectly Competitive Labor Market
- 9.3 Market Power on the Supply Side of Labor Markets: Unions
- 9.4 Bilateral Monopoly
- 9.5 Employment Discrimination
- 9.6 Immigration
Chapter 10
Information, Risk, and Insurance in Financial Markets
- 10.1 The Problem of Imperfect Information and Asymmetric Information
- 10.2 Insurance and Imperfect Information
- 10.3 Introduction to Financial Markets
- 10.4 How Businesses Raise Financial Capital
- 10.5 How to Accumulate Personal Wealth
Chapter 11
International Trade
- 11.1 Absolute and Comparative Advantage
- 11.2 What Happens When a Country Has an Absolute Advantage in All Goods
- 11.3 Intra-Industry Trade between Similar Economies
- 11.4 The Benefits of Reducing Barriers to International Trade
Chapter 12
Globalization and Protectionism
- 12.1 Protectionism: An Indirect Subsidy from Consumers to Producers
- 12.2 International Trade and Its Effects on Jobs, Wages, and Working Conditions
- 12.3 Arguments in Support of Restricting Imports
- 12.4 How Governments Enact Trade Policy: Globally, Regionally, and Nationally
- 12.5 The Tradeoffs of Trade Policy
These chapters come straight from the official course syllabus, which also sets out the graded assignment and the proctored final exam.
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Structured College-Level Course
Structured lessons covering every topic — designed as a standard Microeconomics college-level course.
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