About

Economics at the undergraduate level teaches students to think critically about complex situations, and trains them in the economic way of thinking. This involves taking into account relevant alternatives and carefully weighing up the costs and benefits of decisions.

An understanding of economic principles gives students a framework for interpreting and predicting prices and production costs in local and international markets and for understanding why businesses succeed or fail. These principles also enable students to understand the economy-wide factors that affect businesses - such as inflation, interest rates, the exchange rate, and economic growth.

A focus of the subject is how economic agents behave or interact and how economies work. Consistent with this, a primary textbook distinction is between microeconomics and macroeconomics. Microeconomics examines the behavior of basic elements in the economy, including individual agents (such as households and firms or as buyers and sellers) and markets, and their interactions. Macroeconomics analyzes the entire economy and issues affecting it, including unemployment, inflation, economic growth, and monetary and fiscal policy.

I realize of course that many people have not read an economics book since college or high school, but it's time that you pull out one of your old textbooks, or get online and go buy a microeconomics book to help you refresh your memory. This blog recommends a couple of such books that I have in my personal library which has helped me very much, not only with my own personal working knowledge, and my writing, but also my ability to explain microeconomics to others when I'm sitting in symposiums, conferences, or talking with other business leaders.