An important skill in microeconomics is the ability to find a firm's profit. Learn more about how to use a graph to identify the profit-maximizing quantity for a firm in a perfectly competitive market, and identify the area that represents the firm's profit or loss.
Material Type: Lesson
Describe different sociological models for understanding global stratificationUnderstand how studies of global stratification identify worldwide inequalities
Material Type: Homework/Assignment
Dealing with scarcity is the basis of economics, but what does it mean to say that something is scarce? In this video, we explore the definition of scarcity in economics and how scarce resources are different from free resources.
Material Type: Lesson
This video discusses two closely related ideas in economics: scarcity and rivalry.
Material Type: Lesson
In this video, the economic concepts of utility and marginal utility are introduced.
Material Type: Lesson
A common error new economic students make is confusing changes in supply with changes in quantity supplied. A change in quantity supplied is a movement along the supply curve in response to a change in price. A change in supply is a shift of the entire supply curve in response to something besides price.
Material Type: Lesson
This video demonstrates how different points of the business cycle correspond to the production possibilities curve. The discussion includes unemployment, inflation, expansions, recessions and economic growth.
Material Type: Lesson
In this video, learn about how several scenarios affect the aggregate production function and economic growth.
Material Type: Lesson
In this video, Sal explains how the production possibilities curve model can be used to illustrate changes in a country's actual and potential level of output. Concepts covered include efficiency, inefficiency, economic growth and contraction, and recession. When an economy is in a recession, it is operating inside the PPC. When it is at full employment, it operates on the PPC.
Material Type: Lesson
A firm shut's down temporarily when it can't cover its variable cost, but it exits the industry for good when it's economic profits are negative. In this video, learn more about how to use a graph of cost curves to determine when a firm shuts down, enters an industry, or exits an industry.
Material Type: Lesson
How government borrowing could have negative effects on investment and economic growth by "crowding out" private borrowers/investors in the loanable funds market.
Material Type: Lesson
A demand shock has a short-run effect on an output and unemployment, but in the long run only the price level will be impacted. If there is an increase in aggregate demand, the price level will go up. Once wages have adjusted to that inflation in the long run, SRAS decreases and returns the economy to full employment output. Shocks do not cause economic growth, only changes in full employment output cause economic growth.
Material Type: Lesson
Changes in interest rates in one country impact economic conditions in other countries. In this video, walk through a chain of events that starts with a change in interest rates in the United States that affects the relative value of the dollar, the Japanese Yen, and exports.
Material Type: Lesson
Price controls have the potential to reduce total surplus. In this video we step through some details on how one kind of regulation, a price ceiling, can reduce economic efficiency. A real world example of a price ceiling is rent control, which some cities have experimented with as a way to control rising housing costs. Created by Sal Khan.
Material Type: Lesson
Where does a buyer's demand curve come from? A rational buyer wants to get as much "bang per buck" from their consumption as possible. In economics, that's called marginal utility per dollar spent. When the price of a good decreases, the "bang per buck" on that good increases, which incentivizes consuming more of it. In this video, we derive the individual's demand curve for a good by tweaking the marginal utility per dollar spent. Created by Sal Khan.
Material Type: Lesson
Market systems only function well when property rights are well defined. Take a deeper dive into the role of property rights in a market system in this video.
Material Type: Lesson
Cartography is the art and science of graphically representing a geographical area on a flat surface such as a map. For Indigenous peoples, cartography is more than just topography or mapping locations. For many Indigenous communities, it's about values, culture and traditional understandings.
Material Type: Lecture
This is a full course in the principles of microeconomics.
Material Type: Full Course
In order for markets to function effectively, property rights must be clear. In this video, we explore the idea of property rights, and why they matter in markets and how they affect individual incentives. We describe some of the conditions that are necessary for a properly and efficiently operating market to exist, including how exclusivity, enforceability, and transferability of property rights are essential for a properly functioning market.
Material Type: Lesson
In this video we explore the law of supply which states that quantity supplied increases as price increases. We use a supply schedule to describe the quantities a seller is willing to sell at different prices, and then translate the supply schedule into a supply curve that illustrates the law of supply. Created by Sal Khan.
Material Type: Lesson
