Economics & Personal Finance, Part 1 of 2

Economics and Personal Finance offers a tightly focused and scaffolded curriculum that provides an introduction to key economic principles. The course covers fundamental properties of economics, including an examination of markets from both historical and current perspectives; the basics of supply and demand; the theories of early economic philosophers such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo; theories of value; the concept of money and how it evolved; the roles of banks, investment houses, and the Federal Reserve; Keynesian economics; the productivity, wages, investment, and growth involved in capitalism; unemployment, inflation, and the national debt; and a survey of the global economy. The course extends students' understanding of these principles in the context of personal finance, exploring issues such as career planning, budgeting, credit, taxes, investing, insurance, loans, and major purchases.