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Module 1: Welcome to Economics!

• Discuss the importance of studying economics
• Explain the relationship between production and division of labor
• Evaluate the significance of scarcity
• Describe microeconomics
• Describe macroeconomics
• Contrast monetary policy and fiscal policy
• Interpret a circular flow diagram
• Explain the importance of economic theories and models
• Describe goods and services markets and labor markets
• Contrast traditional economies, command economies, and market economies
• Explain gross domestic product (GDP)
• Assess the importance and effects of globalization

Module 2: Choice in a World of Scarcity

• Calculate and graph budget constraints
• Explain opportunity sets and opportunity costs
• Evaluate the law of diminishing marginal utility
• Explain how marginal analysis and utility influence choices
• Interpret production possibilities frontier graphs
• Contrast a budget constraint and a production possibilities frontier
• Explain the relationship between a production possibilities frontier and the law of diminishing returns
• Contrast productive efficiency and allocative efficiency
• Define comparative advantage
• Analyze arguments against economic approaches to decision-making
• Interpret a tradeoff diagram
• Contrast normative statements and positive statements

Module 3: Demand and Supply

• Explain demand, quantity demanded, and the law of demand
• Identify a demand curve and a supply curve
• Explain supply, quantity supplied, and the law of supply
• Explain equilibrium, equilibrium price, and equilibrium quantity
• Identify factors that affect demand
• Graph demand curves and demand shifts
• Identify factors that affect supply
• Graph supply curves and supply shifts
• Identify equilibrium price and quantity through the four-step process
• Graph equilibrium price and quantity
• Contrast shifts of demand or supply and movements along a demand or supply curve
• Graph demand and supply curves, including equilibrium price and quantity, based on real-world examples
• Explain price controls, price ceilings, and price floors
• Analyze demand and supply as a social adjustment mechanism

Module 4: Labor and Financial Markets

• Predict shifts in the demand and supply curves of the labor market
• Explain the impact of new technology on the demand and supply curves of the labor market
• Explain price floors in the labor market such as minimum wage or a living wage
• Identify the demanders and suppliers in a financial market
• Explain how interest rates can affect supply and demand
• Analyze the economic effects of U.S. debt in terms of domestic financial markets
• Explain the role of price ceilings and usury laws in the U.S.
• Apply demand and supply models to analyze prices and quantities
• Explain the effects of price controls on the equilibrium of prices and quantities

Module 5: Elasticity

• Calculate the price elasticity of demand
• Calculate the price elasticity of supply
• Differentiate between infinite and zero elasticity
• Analyze graphs in order to classify elasticity as constant unitary, infinite, or zero
• Analyze how price elasticities impact revenue
• Evaluate how elasticity can cause shifts in demand and supply
• Predict how the long-run and short-run impacts of elasticity affect equilibrium
• Explain how the elasticity of demand and supply determine the incidence of a tax on buyers and sellers
• Calculate the income elasticity of demand and the cross-price elasticity of demand
• Calculate the elasticity in labor and financial capital markets through an understanding of the elasticity of labor supply and the elasticity of savings
• Apply concepts of price elasticity to real-world situations

Module 6: Consumer Choices

• Calculate total utility
• Propose decisions that maximize utility
• Explain marginal utility and the significance of diminishing marginal utility
• Explain how income, prices, and preferences affect consumer choices
• Contrast the substitution effect and the income effect
• Utilize concepts of demand to analyze consumer choices
• Apply utility-maximizing choices to governments and businesses
• Evaluate the reasons for making intertemporal choices
• Interpret an intertemporal budget constraint
• Analyze why people in America tend to save such a small percentage of their income

Module 7: Production, Costs, and Industry Structure

• Explain the difference between explicit costs and implicit costs
• Understand the relationship between cost and revenue
• Understand the concept of a production function
• Differentiate between the different types of inputs or factors in a production function
• Differentiate between fixed and variable inputs
• Differentiate between production in the short run and in the long run
• Differentiate between total and marginal product
• Understand the concept of diminishing marginal productivity
• Understand the relationship between production and costs
• Understand that every factor of production has a corresponding factor price
• Analyze short-run costs in terms of total cost, fixed cost, variable cost, marginal cost, and average cost
• Calculate average profit
• Evaluate patterns of costs to determine potential profit
• Understand how long run production differs from short run production.
• Calculate long run total cost
• Identify economies of scale, diseconomies of scale, and constant returns to scale
• Interpret graphs of long-run average cost curves and short-run average cost curves
• Analyze cost and production in the long run and short run

Module 8: Perfect Competition

• Explain the characteristics of a perfectly competitive market
• Discuss how perfectly competitive firms react in the short run and in the long run
• Calculate profits by comparing total revenue and total cost
• Identify profits and losses with the average cost curve
• Explain the shutdown point
• Determine the price at which a firm should continue producing in the short run
• Explain how entry and exit lead to zero profits in the long run
• Discuss the long-run adjustment process
• Apply concepts of productive efficiency and allocative efficiency to perfectly competitive markets
• Compare the model of perfect competition to real-world markets

Module 9: Monopoly

• Distinguish between a natural monopoly and a legal monopoly.
• Explain how economies of scale and the control of natural resources led to the necessary formation of legal monopolies
• Analyze the importance of trademarks and patents in promoting innovation
• Identify examples of predatory pricing
• Explain the perceived demand curve for a perfect competitor and a monopoly
• Analyze a demand curve for a monopoly and determine the output that maximizes profit and revenue
• Calculate marginal revenue and marginal cost
• Explain allocative efficiency as it pertains to the efficiency of a monopoly

Module 10: Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly

• Explain the significance of differentiated products
• Describe how a monopolistic competitor chooses price and quantity
• Discuss entry, exit, and efficiency as they pertain to monopolistic competition
• Analyze how advertising can impact monopolistic competition
• Explain why and how oligopolies exist
• Contrast collusion and competition
• Interpret and analyze the prisoner’s dilemma diagram
• Evaluate the tradeoffs of imperfect competition

Module 11: Monopoly and Antitrust Policy

• Explain antitrust law and its significance
• Calculate concentration ratios
• Calculate the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI)
• Evaluate methods of antitrust regulation
• Analyze restrictive practices
• Explain tying sales, bundling, and predatory pricing
• Evaluate a real-world situation of possible anticompetitive and restrictive practices
• Evaluate the appropriate competition policy for a natural monopoly
• Interpret a graph of regulatory choices
• Contrast cost-plus and price cap regulation
• Evaluate the effectiveness of price regulation and antitrust policy
• Explain regulatory capture and its significance

Module 12: Environmental Protection and Negative Externalities

• Explain and give examples of positive and negative externalities
• Identify equilibrium price and quantity
• Evaluate how firms can contribute to market failure
• Explain command-and-control regulation
• Evaluate the effectiveness of command-and-control regulation
• Show how pollution charges impact firm decisions
• Suggest other laws and regulations that could fall under pollution charges
• Explain the significance of marketable permits and property rights
• Evaluate which policies are most appropriate for various situations
• Evaluate the benefits and costs of environmental protection
• Explain the effects of ecotourism
• Apply marginal analysis to illustrate the marginal costs and marginal benefits of reducing pollution
• Explain biodiversity
• Analyze the partnership of high-income and low-income countries in efforts to address international externalities
• Apply the production possibility frontier to evaluate the tradeoff between economic output and the environment
• Interpret a graphic representation of the tradeoff between economic output and environmental protection

Module 13: Positive Externalities and Public Goods

• Identify the positive externalities of new technology
• Explain the difference between private benefits and social benefits and give examples of each
• Calculate and analyze rates of return
• Explain the effects of intellectual property rights on social and private rates of return
• Identify three U.S. Government policies and explain how they encourage innovation
• Identify a public good using nonexcludable and non-rival as criteria
• Explain the free rider problem
• Identify several sources of public goods

Module 14: Labor Markets and Income

• Define monopsony power
• Explain how imperfectly competitive labor markets determine wages and employment, where employers have market power
• Explain the concept of labor unions, including membership levels and wages
• Evaluate arguments for and against labor unions
• Analyze reasons for the decline in U.S. union membership
• Explain how firms determine wages and employment when a specific labor market combines a union and a monopsony
• Analyze earnings gaps based on race and gender
• Explain the impact of discrimination in a competitive market
• Identify U.S. public policies designed to reduce discrimination

Module 15: Poverty and Economic Inequality

• Explain economic inequality and how the poverty line is determined
• Analyze the U.S. poverty rate over time, noting its prevalence among different groups of citizens
• Explain the poverty trap, noting how government programs impact it
• Identify potential issues in government programs that seek to reduce poverty
• Calculate a budget constraint line that represents the poverty trap
• Identify the antipoverty government programs that comprise the safety net
• Explain the safety net programs’ primary goals and how these programs have changed over time
• Discuss the complexities of these safety net programs and why they can be controversial
• Explain the distribution of income, and analyze the sources of income inequality in a market economy
• Measure income distribution in quintiles
• Calculate and graph a Lorenz curve
• Show income inequality through demand and supply diagrams
• Explain the arguments for and against government intervention in a market economy
• Identify beneficial ways to reduce the economic inequality in a society
• Show the tradeoff between incentives and income equality

Module 16: Information, Risk, and Insurance

• Analyze the impact of both imperfect information and asymmetric information
• Evaluate the role of advertisements in creating imperfect information
• Identify ways to reduce the risk of imperfect information
• Explain how imperfect information can affect price, quantity, and quality
• Explain how insurance works
• Identify and evaluate various forms of government and social insurance
• Discuss the problems caused by moral hazard and adverse selection
• Analyze the impact of government regulation of insurance

Module 17: Financial Markets

• Describe financial capital and how it relates to profits
• Discuss the purpose and process of borrowing, bonds, and corporate stock
• Explain how firms choose between sources of financial capital
• Show the relationship between savers, banks, and borrowers
• Calculate bond yield
• Contrast bonds, stocks, mutual funds, and assets
• Explain the tradeoffs between return and risk
• Explain the random walk theory
• Calculate simple and compound interest
• Evaluate how capital markets transform financial capital

Module 18: Public Economy

• Explain the significance of rational ignorance
• Evaluate the impact of election expenses
• Explain how special interest groups and lobbyists can influence campaigns and elections
• Describe pork-barrel spending and logrolling
• Assess the median voter theory
• Explain the voting cycle
• Analyze the interrelationship between markets and government

Module 19: International Trade

• Define absolute advantage, comparative advantage, and opportunity costs
• Explain the gains of trade created when a country specializes
• Show the relationship between production costs and comparative advantage
• Identify situations of mutually beneficial trade
• Identify trade benefits by considering opportunity costs
• Identify at least two advantages of intra-industry trading
• Explain the relationship between economies of scale and intra-industry trade
• Explain tariffs as barriers to trade
• Identify at least two benefits of reducing barriers to international trade

Module 20: Globalization and Protectionism

• Explain protectionism and its three main forms
• Analyze protectionism through concepts of demand and supply, noting its effects on equilibrium
• Calculate the effects of trade barriers
• Discuss how international trade influences the job market
• Analyze the opportunity cost of protectionism
• Explain how international trade impacts wages, labor standards, and working conditions
• Explain and analyze various arguments that are in support of restricting imports, including the infant industry argument, the anti-dumping argument, the environmental protection argument, the unsafe consumer products argument, and the national interest argument
• Explain dumping and race to the bottom
• Evaluate the significance of countries’ perceptions on the benefits of growing trade
• Explain the origin and role of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
• Discuss the significance and provide examples of regional trading agreements
• Analyze trade policy at the national level
• Evaluate long-term trends in barriers to trade
• Asses the complexity of international trade
• Discuss why a market-oriented economy is so affected by international trade
• Explain disruptive market change