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Economics

It's the economy, stupid.

  • Credit Recovery Enabled
  • Course Length: 18 weeks
  • Course Type: Basic
  • Category:
    • History and Social Science
    • High School

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Shmoop's Economics course has been granted a-g certification, which means it has met the rigorous iNACOL Standards for Quality Online Courses and will now be honored as part of the requirements for admission into the University of California system.

This course has also been certified by Quality Matters, a trusted quality assurance organization that provides course review services to certify the quality of online and blended courses.

Economics plays a part in every decision we've ever made. 

Sound scary? It doesn't have to be. 

This course will help us better understand the fundamental principle of scarcity and introduce us to the theoretical concepts of both microeconomics and macroeconomics. We'll be able to understand the operations and institutions of economic systems so we don't lead to the downfall of civilization when it's our turn to manage the economy.

Although graphs and charts will make a strong appearance, the focus of the course is not on harnessing the power to manipulate graphs. We'll leave that to die-hard lovers of theoretical constructs. We, on the other hand, will be focused on gaining a firm conceptual understanding of economics. 

Why? Because the more we understand about the economic environment around us, the more we'll be able to actively participate in it. And the less of a chance we have to destroy it.

Technology Requirements

A basic scientific calculator is all we'll need here. We promise we tried to keep the math light, but we'll still have a few calculations to do every now and then.

Unit Breakdown

1 Economics - Fundamental Economic Concepts

Before we can delve into the heart and soul of economics, we need to cover the fundamentals of what makes economics the interesting and unique subject that it is. We'll see why scarcity drives us to make choices, and what incentivizes us to go with one choice or another. It may seem like economics is all about money, but choices are really what we'll be talking about here.

2 Economics - Comparative Economic Systems

We've all heard that economics is all about supply and demand. In fact, that's how we could sum up this unit in a nutshell. But we've also heard that different nations have different economies and may decide to manage them differently. Here, we'll learn about all these different economic systems, and why some countries went with one over another.

3 Economics - Microeconomics

Microeconomics is all about the small picture. Normally we'd want the big picture, but sometimes we can learn more by looking at individual markets. This unit studies microeconomics by focusing mainly on the labor market and its history. Unless we'd rather live in a shed behind our parents' house, with an extension cord running to the garage to get electricity, we'll have to get a job someday. It might be helpful to know what the current U.S. labor market looks like so we can make wise career decisions.

4 Economics - Macroeconomics

If economics is a two-sided coin, microeconomics is on one side with its BFF macroeconomics right on the other. Macroeconomics is all about what economies look at a national level, and what governments try to do to influence them. We'll finally know what all those numbers on the nightly news like the GDP and inflation rate really mean. Now that's something to get excited about.

5 Economics - International Economic Concepts

Sometimes it takes a little something extra to get the things we want. In order to get bananas in winter from South America, we may have to send some snow their way. Goods, services, and even money and capital are always flowing between borders to get where they're needed most, usually in exchange for something else. This give and take is what trade, and international economics is all about. We'll see that as Americans, we usually end up doing most of the taking in this relationship.