Trade was critical to Old Babylonia, where many highly prized natural resources were scarce but agricultural goods were in surplus. A vibrant trading system developed, bringing manufactured goods and raw materials from as far as Turkey, and even India, 1500 miles away. Trade became integral to the economy and the culture. In this lesson, students explore the trade industry in Old Babylonia and its far-flung influence.

Economics lesson that helps students understand, interpret, and construct a Lorenz curve. The Lorenz curve is an instrument economists use to determine the level of income inequality in a country. Students have to calculate cumulative percentage of income of each quintile of a population, graph the data, and interpret the results.

Lecture Objective: Students are able to identify incentives and factors that increase the production of ideas, and list the costs and benefits of using patents, prizes, and subsidies to increase idea creation.

The lesson incorporates a number of MRU’s videos about the economics of ideas from our Principles of Macroeconomics video course, as well as a TED-talk on the topic. We also mix in discussion prompts, exercises, practice questions, graphs and charts, and pre- and post-class assignments. Finally, we provide supplementary resources such as additional data sources, relevant articles and blog posts, a few episodes of Planet Money, and even an interview with Robert Solow himself.

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What is Marginal Revolution University (MRU)?

Many of us can remember our first great economics teacher who fundamentally changed how we see the world. At MRU, we try and deliver that experience to millions worldwide through video.

Founded as a nonprofit in 2012 by George Mason University economics professors Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, MRU is building the world’s largest online library of free economics education videos -- currently weighing in at more than 800 videos.

These Guided Notes are note-taking frameworks for Macroeconomics, corresponding to OpenStax Macroeconomics 2e (or the corresponding chapters of OpenStax Principles of Economics). They contain the structure for students to actively engage with the material while in lecture or while reading.

The notes were authored by Kevin Cook of Des Moines Area Community College.

Campaign for affordable textbooks. Web site contains a large catalogue of open textbooks.

This JiTT exercise uses a real-life example to pose a question to students about the nature of "rationality" as typically used in economics. In this case, the focus is on fixed vs. marginal costs and the use of marginal analysis by economists to make "rational" economic decisions.

This textbook is an introduction to Relationship Violence and Working Together Towards a Violence Free Society.

Have you ever heard someone say "Back in my day, a gallon of gas cost a quarter!" Comparing today's prices with prices "back in the day" can be misleading. Both inflation and deflation between then and now have to be taken into account. Read the August 2013 issue to learn more about the effects of inflation on prices.

Medieval and early modern Russia stood at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. In this course we will examine some of the native developments and foreign influences which most affected the course of Russian history. Particular topics include the rise of the Kievan State, the Mongol Yoke, the rise of Muscovy, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, relations with Western Europe. How did foreigners perceive Russia? How did those living in the Russian lands perceive foreigners? What social relations were developing between nobility and peasantry, town and country, women and men? What were the relations of each of these groups to the state? How did state formation come about in Kievan and Muscovite Russia? What were the political, religious, economic, and social factors affecting relations between state and society? In examining these questions we will consider a variety of sources including contemporary accounts (both domestic and foreign), legal and political documents, historical monographs and interpretive essays.

In this problem, students consider the benefits of reduced tray usage in school cafeterias by comparing the cost savings of having to clean fewer trays against the opportunity cost of increased labor and energy costs to clean the cafeteria after meals.

MarketSim helps students understand the functioning of markets by having them become consumers and producers in a simulated economy. There are two versions, both implemented over the internet. Jeremy's market is a consumer barter market. Adam's market introduces firms and money. MarketSim received funding from the National Science Foundation. The simulation is most appropriate for economics principles courses. The principle developers are Tod S. Porter and Kriss Schueller at Youngstown State University.

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This set of assignments exposes students to statistics and data pertaining to economic wellbeing over time across racial (black-white) categories in the U.S.

This kit explores how sustainability has been presented in the media with a particular focus on issues related to food, water and agriculture. Each of the 19 lessons integrates media literacy and critical thinking into lessons about different aspect of sustainability. Constant themes throughout the kit include social justice, climate change, energy, economics and unintended consequences.

This course explores the international trade in television text, considering the ways in which ‘foreign’ programs find places within ‘domestic’ schedules. Looking at the life television texts maintain outside of their home market, this course examines questions of globalization and national cultures of production and reception. Students will be introduced to a range of positions about the nature of international textual trade, including economic arguments about the structuring of international markets and ethnographic studies about the role imported content plays in the formation of hybrid national identities. Students will be encouraged to consider the role American content is made to play in non-American markets.

Students listen to the story Meet Kit about a young girl's life in America during the Great Depression. They learn through discussion and role-playing about the impact that unemployment and reduced consumer and business spending can have on people's lives.

This half-semester course provides an introduction to microeconomic theory designed to meet the needs of students in an economics Ph.D. program. Some parts of the course are designed to teach material that all graduate students should know. Others are used to introduce methodologies. Students should be comfortable with multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and basic real analysis.

The topic of the class is information and contract theory. The purpose is to give an introduction to some of the main subjects in this field: decision making under uncertainty, risk sharing, moral hazard, adverse selection, mechanism design, and incomplete contracting.

This is an introductory course in Microeconomics. This course aims to introduce students to the basic concepts of microeconomics such as scarcity and choice, and their influences in the decision-making process of individual consumers, firms, and governmental entities. Economics involves all types of decisions. This class will help you understand how different actors, business, households, non-profits and government institutions act. You will realize that this class helps you to put in economic terms the many daily decisions you make about how you allocate your resources. You choose daily what products to buy, businesses decide what products they produce and how many and what services they offer. This class will give you the structure you will need to make decisions more rationally, improving the way you utilize the limited resources that you have at hand.