Common Sense Economics (2016)
Gwartney, Stroup, Lee and Ferrarini
59 Key Concepts

Part 1.   Modules 1-4/Supplement A
19 Concepts

  1. Comparative advantage
  2. Demand and supply
  3. Gains from trade
  4. Helping others and receipt of income
  5. Incentives
  6. Jobs versus the creation of wealth
  7. Marginalism
  8. Market Equilibrium
  9. Market prices and the invisible hand principle
  10. Opportunity costs
  11. Price ceilings
  12. Price changes in dynamic markets
  13. Price floors
  14. Profit and loss
  15. Scarcity
  16. Secondary effects and unintended consequences
  17. Shifts in demand and supply
  18. Sources of economic progress
  19. Transaction costs

Part 3. Modules 8-11
14 Concepts

  1. Government failure
  2. Market failure: externalities
  3. Market failure: monopoly
  4. Market failure: public goods
  5. Central planning, politics and resource allocation
  6. Competition among governments, incentives, and resource allocation
  7. Constitutional rules and sound economics
  8. Opportunity cost of government
  9. Political incentives and short-sightedness
  10. Political versus the market process
  11. Protective and productive roles of government
  12. Special interest and political allocation
  13. Transfers, incentives, and the “welfare” of recipients
  14. Unintended consequences of transfers and subsidies

 

Part 2. Modules 5-7
11 Concepts

  1. Capital markets: wealth-creating versus inefficient projects
  2. Competitive process
  3. Economic growth: record and importance
  4. Economic freedom, growth and income
  5. Economics, politics, and trade restrictions
  6. Gains from international trade
  7. Legal system and private ownership
  8. Monetary policy and inflation
  9. Private property and incentives
  10. Regulation and gains from trade
  11. Taxes, incentives, and productive activity

Part 4. Modules 12-15
15 Concepts

  1. Attitudes, productivity, and personal success
  2. Budgeting and getting more out of your income
  3. Comparative advantage and discovery of career opportunities,
  4. Dangers of debt and credit card use
  5. Diversification and reducing investment risk
  6. Entrepreneurship, productivity, and personal success
  7. Index versus managed equity funds
  8. Portfolio adjustments and phases of life
  9. Power of compound interest
  10. Prudent saving: planning for a “rainy day”
  11. Random walk theory and stock prices
  12. Risk and return: stocks versus bonds
  13. Risk and insurance
  14. Risk and investments
  15. Strategic spending: used versus new