Principles of Microeconomics Course|Economics

Lectures (Video)

Principles of Microeconomics

Course Summary

This course is based on 14.01 Principles of Microeconomics made available by Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.

This is an introductory undergraduate course on the fundamentals of microeconomics. It introduces microeconomic concepts and analysis, supply and demand analysis, theories of the firm and individual behavior, competition and monopoly, and welfare economics. Students will also be introduced to the use of microeconomic applications to address problems in current economic policy. This course is taught by Prof. Jonathan Gruber at MIT and includes a complete set of lecture videos.

This course begins with an introduction to supply and demand and the basic forces that determine an equilibrium in a market economy. Next, it introduces a framework for learning about consumer behavior and analyzing consumer decisions. We then turn our attention to firms and their decisions about optimal production, and the impact of different market structures on firms' behavior. The final section of the course provides an introduction to some of the more advanced topics that can be analyzed using microeconomic theory. These include international trade, the impact of uncertainty on consumer behavior, the operation of capital markets, equity vs. efficiency trade-offs in economic policy and social insurance.

Reading Material

1. Microeconomics (Textbook)
Perloff, Jeffrey M.
Microeconomics.
5th ed. Addison Wesley, 2008.
ISBN: 9780321558497.

This is the official textbook used by students enrolled in the class at MIT.

2. Principles of Microeconomics
Rittenberg, Libby, and Timothy Tregarthen.
Principles of Microeconomics.
Flat World Knowledge, 2009.
ISBN: 9780982043035.

This Creative Commons-licensed online text offers free web viewing and low-cost print & download options.