Economic Forces in the Classroom

Whatever you teach, we have something for you

You are reading Economic Forces, a free weekly newsletter on economics, especially price theory, without the politics. You can support our newsletter by signing up here:

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Part of the impetus for our newsletter was our frustration with how people discuss economic ideas, including how most textbooks explain things. We wanted to use the newsletter for material in our own courses and also be a resource to other teachers and students of economics. Since starting, it’s been great to hear from professors that have assigned our newsletter in their classes.

With the start of the fall semester coming up and people finalizing their syllabi, we want to collect the pieces that we think would be helpful in teaching. Hopefully, it will also be a helpful reference for new readers who haven’t followed us from day one or missed some newsletters.

The first section is basic price theory that could be included in every course. After all, supply and demand isn’t an idea just for principles of microeconomics; it is all of economics. After that, the links are split out by common course names with some newsletters under multiple headings.

If you’re teaching a different course and want some recommended newsletters, make sure to leave a comment, and we will see if there is anything helpful.

General Price Theory

• You'll have to pry supply and demand from my cold, dead hands

• Rational Frameworks, Not Rational People

• Economists have a useful benchmark and so can you!

• A Parrot Can Say Supply and Demand

• Monopolies don't make enough money

• Common Chicanery about Competition

• Take Supply and Demand Seriously, Not Literally

• Giving Thanks for Price Theory

• Is Everything Efficient?

• When Paris doesn't get fed

• Empirical Price Theory

• Economic Puzzles (If You Don’t Know Price Theory)

• Cooperation and Conflict

• There Is No Such Thing As Supply

• Economic Lessons from Veep

• It's Knowledge, Stupid

• Prices and Information

• Those Pesky Transaction Costs

Principles of Microeconomics

All of the posts above plus:

• How can price theory help us navigate the minimum wage debate?

• Costs, Competition, and Prices that Don't Clear the Market

• Why Do Women's Clothes Cost More Than Men's?

• Let's Talk About Price Controls

• Never Preach from a Price Change

• What is Wrong with Econ 101?

• You Found a Market Failure. So What?

• Bitcoin and the Cost Fallacy

• Why Price Gouging Laws Aren't So Bad

Principles of Macroeconomics

• Don't Ask People Why Prices are Rising

• Is Concentration Driving Inflation?

• Is Inflation Demand or Supply Driven?

• Inflation and Time

• Inflation and Relative Prices

• Do Inflation Expectations Matter?

• Are Financial Markets Efficient?

• What About Bubbles?

• Is Bitcoin Destroying the Planet?

• When A Dollar Isn't a Dollar

• Bitcoin and the Cost Fallacy

• Podcast: Larry White | UCLA Price Theory and Macroeconomics

• Podcast: Peter Ireland | Chicago Monetary Economics and Price Theory

• Podcast: David Glasner | Ralph Hawtrey and Price Theory vs. Microfoundations in Macro

• Podcast: Claudia Williamson | Institutions, Economic Development, and Policy Humility

• Podcast: Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin | How the World Became Rich

• Podcast: Carola Binder | Inflation Expectations, Measurement and Causes

Intermediate Microeconomics

• Monopolies don't make enough money

• Thank You Google for Subsidizing my iPhone

• Pricing Electricity Markets

• Failures of The Law of One Price

• Costs and Outputs

• Don't Waste My Time

• In Praise of Lumpiness

• What’s in a Name?

• Biases in Economic Theory

• Are Monopolies Ever Good?

• Reader Questions: On Price-Taking and Competition

• Markets Must Become Competitive

• When Supply Curves Slope Down

Industrial Organization or Competition Policy

• Monopolies don't make enough money

• Do Acquisitions Help or Hurt Innovation?

• Pricing Electricity Markets

• What is Antitrust Law Really About?

• Competition is about more than prices

• Is Apple's App Store Competitive?

• Why Might Firms Offer Free Services?

• When Duopolies are the Same as Monopolies

• Are Monopolies Ever Good?

• Reader Questions: On Price-Taking and Competition

• Markets Must Become Competitive

• Economic Lessons from Veep

• Is Concentration Driving Inflation?

• Bad Repeated Dealings

• Monopsony isn't Monopoly Flipped-Upside Down

• Podcast: Garrett Scott | Airline Pricing, Refunds, and the Role of Price Discrimination

Money and Banking or Monetary Economics

• Are Financial Markets Efficient?

• What About Bubbles?

• A Competitive Market for Money?

• Price Theory and Cryptocurrency

• Why Didn't They Just Give Up on Gold?

• Crypto Hacks and Efficient Markets

• Modern Day Bills of Exchange

• When A Dollar Isn't a Dollar

• Podcast: Larry White | UCLA Price Theory and Macroeconomics

• Podcast: Peter Ireland | Chicago Monetary Economics and Price Theory

• Podcast: Carola Binder | Inflation Expectations, Measurement and Causes

Public Economics/Public Finance

• An argument only a crazy economist would make

• What (and who) in the world are we trying to tax when we tax corporate income?

• Hey Jealousy

• What Do Taxes on Goods Actually Tax?

• What the Heck is Welfare?

• Why Price Gouging Laws Aren't So Bad

• Is Everything Efficient?

• Why Regulate Prices?

• We Need a Theory of Publicly Provided Goods

• Regulation-as-Exchange

• Externalities and the Numbers Problem

• In Praise of Lumpiness

• Policy as a Contract

• One Word: Externality

• Where Are the Vaccine Subsidies?

• Are Monopolies Ever Good?

• Economics and Ethics

• Is Bitcoin Destroying the Planet?

• College is a Subsidy to the Rich

• You Found a Market Failure. So What?

• It's Infrastructure Week!

• Podcast: Casey Mulligan | Regulation, Innovation, and the Economics of Pandemic

Law and Economics

• Economics and the Law

• What’s in a Name?

• Transaction Costs, the Family, and Public Policy

• In Defense of Non-Competes

• Policy as a Contract

• Why Do Authors Get Paid Royalties?

• Economics and Ethics

• What is the Deal with NFTs?

• Planned Obsolescence

• Why Didn't They Just Give Up on Gold?

• Institutions Have Knowledge, Not People

• Bad Repeated Dealings

• Those Pesky Transaction Costs

• Podcast: Charles Hickson | Earl Thompson, National Defense, and Efficient Institutions

• Podcast: Josh Wright | UCLA Law and Economics, Relational Contracts, and Antitrust

• Podcast: Claudia Williamson | Institutions, Economic Development, and Policy Humility

• Podcast: Henry Thompson | Mafia Courts and Contracting without the Law

• Podcast: Mark Koyama and Jared Rubin | How the World Became Rich

Labor Economics

• You'll have to pry supply and demand from my cold, dead hands

• How can price theory help us navigate the minimum wage debate?

• Who Pays for the Minimum Wage?

• In Defense of Non-Competes

• Not Exactly a Nobel for Price Theory

• Are there low-skilled workers?

• College is a Subsidy to the Rich

• Subsidize the Worker, Not the Job

• Monopsony isn't Monopoly Flipped-Upside Down