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Week 2 · Module overview

Week 2 — The Market It Sells Into: Economics for Business

Introduction to Business Free sample edition

Welcome to your Week 2 Start Here page.

Why this matters

Whether you sell produce at a weekend market or work the register at a nail salon, this week shows how buyers and sellers settle on a price and how the wider economy pushes on every business.

In plain language

This week is about the market a business sells into and the economy around that market. Every country has an economic system (its answer to who owns the farms, factories, and shops, and who decides what gets made). Inside a market, the price of something settles where demand (how much buyers want at each price) meets supply (how much sellers offer at each price). Markets also differ in how many sellers compete, and the whole economy has a few health signs that every owner watches. You will use one strawberry stand's schedule to see how a price is set, and you will find the coffee cart's place among its rivals.

  • Already covered: Week 1, The Idea and Its Environment.
  • This week: economic systems, one strawberry schedule, the four market structures, and the economy's health signs.
  • How they connect: last week's scan named market forces; this week shows how they set a price.
  • Where we're going next: Week 3, From Idea to Plan.

Focus

How does a market set a price, how many rivals does a business face, and who steers the wider economy?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

  • [ ] find an equilibrium, a shortage, and a surplus
  • [ ] tell a shift of demand from a price change
  • [ ] place a business in a market structure
  • [ ] say who sets fiscal and monetary policy

To-do

Plan your week

  1. Read Chapter 2 (about 35 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
  2. Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes) and the practice set (about 20 minutes).
  3. Do the Business Case Workshop (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment.
  4. Take the quiz.

This week's checkpoint: read a supply-and-demand schedule, find its equilibrium, and say whether a change is a shift of demand or a movement along the schedule.

You've got this

Take it in order, and ask your instructor if a step snags.

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