What is economics? -- Scarcity and choice: the economic problem -- Supply and demand: an initial look -- Consumer choice: individual and market demand -- Demand and elasticity -- Production, inputs, and cost: building blocks for supply analysis -- Output, price, and profit: the importance of marginal analysis -- The firm and the industry under perfect competition -- The price system and the case for free markets -- Monopoly -- Between competition and monopoly -- The market mechanism: shortcomings and remedies -- Microeconomics of the "new economy": innovation and growth -- Real firms and their financing: stocks and bonds -- Pricing the factors of production -- Labor: the human input -- Poverty, inequality, and discrimination -- Limiting market power: regulation and antitrust -- Taxation and resource allocation -- Externalities, the environment, and natural resources

1. Economics