ECON 100-01, Introduction to Economics, Fall 2010

Abstract

Welcome to ECON 100, a one‐semester introduction to the economic way of thinking through the study of both microeconomics and macroeconomics. This is your opportunity to develop an “apparatus of the mind” with far‐reaching applications that span time, culture, religion, and wealth. What intrigues you? What concerns you? Even more, what baffles you? Your answers to these questions will determine the specific relevance of the “economic way of thinking” to your life. Economics can be successfully employed by anyone. Like other social scientists, economists aim to explain human behavior but within a unique framework using special tools. In this course you will start building an economist’s toolkit that will allow you to study homo economicus (economic man), rightly understood. Specific topics of this course include demand for goods and services, production and supply of the same, trade, economic growth, inflation, and unemployment.