Week 13 — Readings & Resources

Course: Principles of Microeconomics (ECON 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Kessler
Focus: Factor / Labor Markets — Derived Demand, VMPL & Wage Differentials · Objective 7

Everything below is a link to a free external resource — nothing is embedded, copied, or downloaded. Links were verified live at build time; if one ever rots, the per-term update re-checks them. (Canvas: a Page of links + ExternalUrl module items.)

📖 Read (≈25 min)

1. OpenStax, Principles of Microeconomics 3e — Ch. 14, "Labor Markets and Wages" (§14.1 The Theory of Labor Markets; §14.2 Wages and Employment in an Imperfectly Competitive Labor Market)
   🔗 https://openstax.org/details/books/principles-microeconomics-3e
   The VMPL model, the hiring rule, and the sources of wage differentials. Core reading for the week.

2. OpenStax, Principles of Microeconomics 3e — Ch. 15, "Poverty and Economic Inequality" (§15.1 The Distribution of Household Income; §15.2 Causes of Growing Inequality)
   🔗 https://openstax.org/details/books/principles-microeconomics-3e
   Connects the wage-differential framework to broader questions about inequality. Skim the opening two sections.

3. Khan Academy — Microeconomics → "Factor Markets." Read/skim Derived demand and the value of the marginal product.
   🔗 https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microeconomics
   Short worked examples with practice questions you can self-check.

▶️ Watch (≈15 min)

4. CrashCourse Economics #28 — "Labor Markets and Minimum Wage."
   🔗 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtPNZwz5_o_5uirJ8gQXnhEO
   Episode 28 of the playlist — derived demand, VMPL, and the minimum wage debate. ≈10 min.

5. Marginal Revolution University (MRU) — Principles of Economics: Microeconomics, "The Demand for Labor" unit.
   🔗 https://mru.org/courses/principles-economics-microeconomics
   Tyler Cowen & Alex Tabarrok's free course; covers VMPL and the hiring rule clearly with worked examples.

🛠️ Tools for this week (links only)

6. Desmos Graphing Calculator — optional this week; useful for plotting the VMPL schedule as a step function.
   🔗 https://www.desmos.com/calculator

7. FRED — Federal Reserve Economic Data — for real labor-market data (employment levels, wage series) if you want to ground the wage-differential discussion in data.
   🔗 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/

Why these earn the click: OpenStax Ch. 14 is the primary model; Ch. 15 connects it to the distributional debate; CrashCourse and MRU make the VMPL logic vivid; Khan provides self-check practice; FRED is there for the empirically curious.