Back to Microeconomics: The Power of Markets
University of Pennsylvania

Microeconomics: The Power of Markets

We make economics decisions every day: what to buy, whether to work or play, what to study. We respond to markets all the time: prices influence our decisions, markets signal where to put effort, they direct firms to produce certain goods over others. Economics is all around us. This course is an introduction to the microeconomic theory of markets: why we have them, how they work, what they accomplish. We will start with the concept of scarcity and how specialization according to comparative advantage helps us achieve more than we could alone. Next we model a marked using the tools of Supply and Demand and learn what well working markets accomplish and what their limit are. We end by exploring the impact of government intervention on perfect markets. Examples are taken from everyday life, from goods and services that we all purchase and use. We will apply the theory to current events and policy debates through weekly exercises. These will empower you to be an educated, critical thinker who can understand, analyze and evaluate market outcomes.

Status: Resource Allocation
Status: Decision Making
Course15 hours

Featured reviews

AS

5.0Reviewed Jan 13, 2017

I really enjoyed the clarity with which the concepts were taught. I loved the examples and I thought they were very helpful and made the concepts so much easier to understand.

AP

5.0Reviewed May 16, 2020

The information I gained during this course will surely help me in becoming a better economist in the future and I found all the concepts quite easy as they were explained very well.

DF

5.0Reviewed Feb 27, 2021

This course did an amazing job of succinctly explaining concepts such as consumer surplus, tax incidence, and dead weight loss with verbal and numerical examples!

YG

5.0Reviewed Mar 2, 2016

Nice lecture and quizzes. Easy to follow and very encouraging for those who is new to coursera or has failed to finish online courses within deadline before (like me).

KK

5.0Reviewed Jun 10, 2020

an amazing course and amazing lecturer professor Rebecca Stein, I have learned a lot in this course and thanks a lot for the University of Penn and professor Rebecca Stein

AC

5.0Reviewed Feb 7, 2021

This course was very informative. It was great how the professor approached the topics by utilizing a building framework to make the topics easily digestible. Highly recommend!

MP

5.0Reviewed Apr 6, 2020

The course was well structured and well delivered.The way each topic was delivered by the instructor, helped beginners like me to get a good understanding of the basics.ThankYou!

RM

4.0Reviewed Aug 16, 2025

Excellently organised course. Amazing for building concepts. An area for improvement is explanations for quizzes. More elaborate explanations would improve learning outcomes even further.

RL

4.0Reviewed Feb 9, 2018

Nice introductory course for microeconomics. Course provides simple and easy explanations for demand and supply, elasticity, effects of tax and subsidies on market.

D

5.0Reviewed May 24, 2021

A very good introduction to microeconomics course, the professor was great. She explained all the concepts with ease. I would urge everyone who wants to get started with economics to try this course.

AN

5.0Reviewed Jan 21, 2021

It’s been my 4th and favorite course on coursera one so far! Very short interesting videos with great explanation and great visual demonstration by having a transperent board in front of the teacher!

PK

4.0Reviewed Jul 14, 2023

Inspired and feel delighted by Ms Rebecca's explanation on microeconomics jargons in the best possible way to be understood for everyday non-economist to digest.

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