Economics is not just a subject — it is a way of thinking. This course teaches you how.

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About this course

Most people encounter economics as a collection of charts, formulas and abstract theories. This course takes a different approach. It builds from the ground up — starting with ten deceptively simple principles that explain how individuals make decisions, how markets organise activity, and how entire economies behave.

Based on Mankiw’s foundational framework — the most widely taught approach to economics in the world — this course gives you the mental tools to understand trade-offs, incentives, market failures and macroeconomic policy. Not just as theory, but as a lens you can apply to everyday decisions, business strategy and public policy.

By the time you finish, economics will not feel like a foreign language. It will feel like common sense — with rigour behind it.

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Skills you will learn

• Recognise the strengths and limits of the Mankiw framework — and think critically about the assumptions behind mainstream economicsusiness strategies. To see how these forces interact in the real world, the course culminates in a detailed case study of the 2008 U.S. economic crisis. This analysis provides powerful lessons on market behavior, policy impact, and the interconnectedness of the modern global economy.

• Understand why every choice has a cost — and how thinking in opportunity costs changes the way you make decisions

• Apply marginal thinking to evaluate options the way economists — and the best business leaders — actually do

• See why markets work, when they fail, and what governments can and cannot fix

• Understand the forces behind inflation, unemployment and economic growth — and why managing them involves unavoidable trade-offs

• Evaluate economic policy arguments with confidence — distinguishing what works in theory from what works in practice