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High School AP Microeconomics

Suggested Prerequisites

Algebra 1

Description

In this course, you will explore the power of marginal thinking and apply it to common decisions that individuals and business firms encounter each day. You will examine, interpret, analyze, and model key microeconomics concepts and processes, from the shifting supply and demand for familiar products to the model of the labor market and how wages are determined. This rich course provides you with all the material and practice needed for success on the AP Exam. Yet, this is just the beginning—in the long run, taking this course will develop the critical thinking and analytical skills that empower you for a lifetime.

Module One: Basic Economic Skills and Concepts

-Scarcity

-Resource allocation

-Economic systems

-Production possibilities curve/frontier

-Reading and constructing basic economics graphs

-Comparative advantage and trade

-Cost-benefit analysis

-Marginal analysis and impact on consumer choice


Module Two: Supply and Demand

-The law of demand and determinants of demand

-The law of supply and determinants of supply

-Price elasticity of demand

-Price elasticity of supply

-Cross-price and income elasticity

-Market equilibrium

-Constructing and interpreting market graphs

-Economic surplus

-Market disequilibrium

-International trade and public policy


Module Three: Production, Cost, and the Perfect Competition Model

-The production function

-Short-run production costs

-Long-run production costs

-Types of profit

-Profit maximization of the firm

-Short-run production decisions

-Long-run decisions to enter or exit a market

-The perfectly competitive market model

-Allocative and productive efficiency


Module Four: Imperfect Competition

-Distinguishing imperfect from perfect competition

-Characteristics of imperfectly competitive markets

-The monopoly model

-Basics of the natural monopoly model

-Price discrimination in a monopoly

-The monopolistic competition model

-Oligopoly and game theory

-Reading and analyzing a payoff matrix


Module Five: Factor Markets

-Defining factor (resource) markets

-Differentiating input from output markets

-Identifying changes in factor demand and factor supply and outcomes

-Profit maximization in a perfectly competitive factor market

-The monopsony model


Module Six: Market Failure and the Role of Government

-Socially optimal production

-Defining market failure

-Efficient versus inefficient market outcomes

-Externalities

-Public goods

-Private goods

-Effects of government intervention

-Comparing government intervention in different market structures

This is a one-segment course.