---
title: Economics Foundations
url: https://doc.liz6.com/en/general-education/economics-foundations
locale: en
area: general-education
tags:
- General Education
- Economics Foundations
- General education
- Economics foundations
date: 2026-09-12
modified: 2026-09-12
description: Twenty introductory lessons for readers without specialist training. Start with choices about time, shops, and households, then use accounts to understand markets, banks, and the wider economy. Calculus is unnecessary; percentages, coordinates, and simple equations are demonstrated in context.
---

# Economics Foundations

Twenty introductory lessons for readers without specialist training. Start with choices about time, shops, and households, then use accounts to understand markets, banks, and the wider economy. Calculus is unnecessary; percentages, coordinates, and simple equations are demonstrated in context.

The goal is to explain how a change passes between actors, distinguish accounting from conditional predictions and causal evidence, identify gains and costs, and state which changed assumption would overturn a conclusion. Numerical cases are fictional teaching examples, not measured policy effects or investment forecasts.

## Reading and checking understanding

For a first pass, follow lessons 01–20 below. Make the prediction before reading its explanation. Prerequisite links support review. Technical URLs retain legacy numbers; the sequence below is the current course order. Prose, tables, and exercise explanations carry the core learning tasks without scripts.

For households and markets, complete 01–11 in order; strategic interaction is a prerequisite for contracts and shared-resource problems. For macroeconomics, complete 01–07 and 10–11 before 12–18; revisit 08–09 for institutions and resource problems. Trade in 19 needs comparative advantage and elasticity; growth in 20 needs real output, capital, and interest. Use the prerequisites to reconstruct reasoning, not just memorize conclusions.

By 04, produce a before/after table of quantities, payments, transfers, and lost gains from trade after a price rise or tax. By 13, explain how nominal income can rise while purchasing power falls. By 18, trace fiscal and monetary responses to falling demand through actors' accounts and identify a possible break in each chain. In 20, distinguish a one-time level improvement from sustained growth. If an explanation fails, change one condition in the case and try again.

## Reading order

### Choice and exchange · 01–02

- 01 [Economic Choice and Analysis](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/01-models-and-evidence)
- 02 [Specialization, Comparative Advantage, and Exchange](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/04-comparative-advantage-and-exchange)

### Prices and gains from trade · 03–04

- 03 [Market Prices and Elasticity](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/05-supply-demand-and-equilibrium)
- 04 [Surplus, Taxes, and Subsidies](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/07-surplus-efficiency-and-distribution)

### Firms and interaction · 05–07

- 05 [Firm Costs, Pricing, and Competition](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/09-production-costs-and-profit)
- 06 [Strategic Interaction and Cooperation](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/11-strategic-interaction)
- 07 [Asymmetric Information and Contracts](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/12-information-and-contracts)

### Institutions, resources, distribution · 08–11

- 08 [Externalities and Social Costs](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/13-externalities)
- 09 [Public Goods and Common Resources](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/14-public-goods-and-common-resources)
- 10 [Labor Markets, Wages, and Employment](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/15-labor-markets-and-wages)
- 11 [Income, Wealth, and Inequality](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/16-income-wealth-and-inequality)

### Output and prices · 12–13

- 12 [GDP and National Income](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/17-gdp-and-national-income)
- 13 [Price Indexes and Inflation](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/18-price-indexes-and-inflation)

### Credit, fluctuations, policy · 14–18

- 14 [Money, Banking, and Credit](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/20-money-banking-and-credit)
- 15 [Interest, Saving, and Investment](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/21-interest-saving-and-investment)
- 16 [Economic Fluctuations and Aggregate Demand](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/22-fluctuations-and-aggregate-demand)
- 17 [Fiscal Policy](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/23-fiscal-policy)
- 18 [Monetary Policy](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/24-monetary-policy)

### Trade and long-run growth · 19–20

- 19 [International Trade and Exchange Rates](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/25-trade-and-exchange-rates)
- 20 [Productivity and Economic Growth](/en/general-education/economics-foundations/26-productivity-and-growth)

## Using sources

Each lesson links original sources for concepts, accounting, and institutions. For actual data, also check country, year, population, and statistical definitions. A teaching model helps organize a question; it does not by itself estimate a real policy's effect.