Welcome to  an Introduction to Microeconomic Principles. At the core of any economics course is the problem of scarcity: there is simply not enough "stuff" to go around so choices need to be made continuously and economists study these choices.  Scarcity certainly imposes many choices and challenges:  do I work on an assignment or head to a party?  Experience has shown that some people approach these choices head on while others avoid them, but no one escapes them.  The same is true of the choices we will make concerning the balancing of our professional and personal lives and the balancing of consumption for today against investment for tomorrow.  Do I go to that movie or work on that research paper?   Do I work Saturday on the new project at work or go to the kid's concert or ball game?  Do I buy that new "hot car" or do I put that money into a mutual fund to pay for the down payment on a house?

Despite all of the PR executives who tell us that "You can have it all," in most cases you cannot have it all and you will need to make these choices.  It should not take long to figure out that there will be no shortage of "experts" telling you how to make those choices. 

Scarcity has also imposed on all societies the need to allocate resources, to design 'economic systems' which will solve the basic economic questions of What to produce, How to produce it, and to Whom does it get distributed? It does not matter whether we are talking about the ancient Chinese or Egyptian societies, Renaissance Europe, Colonial America, or modern Latin America.   In each society there was not enough to satisfy all wants so choices needed to be made.  Do we spend the money on missiles or health care, do we spend it on new highways or mass transit, education or recreation?  How do we allocate scarce parking spaces at Jack-in-The-Box?

The focus in this course will be on the behavior of individual decision makers and how this influences the prices that you pay for things that you buy, and that you receive for what you sell. Some of the questions that we will look into are:  What will happen to the price of computers if we loose some computer companies?  How much will that first house cost you when you are ready to buy? What will happen to the price of 'pot' if it is legalized? How can we explain the downsizing of American companies?  How will the internet affect the prices you pay for cars and stock? What was the basis of the government cases against Microsoft and Intel?  How can we best deal with pollution problems such as acid rain and global warming?