Learn Economics from scratch, ECO03

Explore how governments organize and distribute labor, resources, services, and groups, and compare capitalism, socialism, and the N-E economy, with a focus on capital, labor, and physical resources.

Learn about the capitalist economy, a private-ownership, market-driven system with minimal government intervention. Assess its efficiency, freedom of choice, and innovation, as well as risks of exploitation, inequality, and unemployment.

Explore how socialism and centrally planned economies center decision making in the state, with government ownership of productive resources, centralized planning, and absence of profit motive.

Explore the mixed economy, a system blending capitalism with planning, where the means of production are partly owned by government and private individuals, with joint decision making and government-provided infrastructure.

Explore economic integration from free trade areas to economic unions, focusing on tariff removal, non-tariff restrictions, and gains in efficiency and welfare.

Explore the basics of international trade, contrasting bilateral trade between two countries with multilateral trade among many, and examine the reasons behind international outreach.

Explore why nations trade, from uneven resource distribution and technology gaps to climate conditions and skill differences, and how international treaties and comparative advantage expand markets.

Explore the advantages of international trade, such as larger output, government revenue, employment, wider markets, and technology transfer. Recognize disadvantages like overdependence, dumping, suppression of infant industries, unemployment, and risks.

Explore absolute and comparative advantages to see how countries specialize and gain from trade. Learn the core assumptions—two countries, two commodities, and no transport costs or tariffs—that shape these principles.

Understand terms of trade, the relationship between export and import prices, calculated as export price index over import price index times 100, noting favorable above 100 and strategies to improve.

Explore the balance of trade, the relation between visible exports and visible imports over a year, and note that visible goods are tangible commodities.

Explore home trade within a country, examining problems from middlemen, transportation, storage, and standard units to trade unions, while comparing with international trade and highlighting producer–consumer links.