Week 13 · Readings & resources

Week 13 — Readings & Resources

Principles of Microeconomics Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 13 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 11 items (5 readings and 6 videos). Allow 45–56 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (16–20 min total)

① Turning a worker into dollars: the hiring rule

Chapter 13, Section “Apply the hiring rule” · Session 1, Segment 2, “The hiring rule” · Remember: multiply each worker's extra output by the price of the product, then hire while that value is at least the wage.

How to Calculate Marginal Revenue Product — Economics in Many Lessons — a hair salon sells haircuts at a market price and hires barbers at a weekly wage. The video subtracts each week's total from the next to get marginal product, multiplies by the price of a haircut, and keeps hiring while that dollar value is at least the wage, the same steps the chapter uses for the bakery. It calls the dollar value the marginal revenue product; for a seller that takes its price as given, that is the chapter's value of the marginal product of labor. This builds on Week 9's work with marginal product. (video, 6 min) (captions: automatic)

② Labor supply, labor demand, and the market wage

Chapter 13, Section “Bring back supply and demand: labor supply and the market wage” · Session 1, Segment 3, “Labor supply and the market wage” · Remember: labor demand slopes down, labor supply slopes up, and the market wage sits where they cross.

The Labor Market - Economic Lowdown — Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — a five-minute explainer in which firms are the buyers of labor and workers the sellers, with the wage as the price. Its nursing example is derived demand in words: more demand for health care shifts the demand for nurses right and raises their wages, while more people choosing nursing shifts labor supply right and lowers them. The hourly wages it offers job seekers are made-up illustrations, not real pay data. Use this example while completing the Week-13 module overview. (video, 5 min) (captions: creator)
Labour Supply and Demand — Bank of Canada — a three-minute cartoon that draws labor supply and demand as two hockey sticks, with workers along the bottom and the wage up the side. It shows a gap closing as the wage rises to equilibrium, then two shifts: more teams in a league shift labor demand right and raise players' pay, and more players joining shift labor supply right and push pay down. The colors it mentions are named in the narration too. (video, 3 min) (captions: creator)

③ Why some jobs pay more than others

Chapter 13, Section “Explain why wages differ” · Session 2, Segment 4, “Human capital and compensating differentials” · Remember: training that raises what a worker can produce tends to raise pay, and so do hours or risks most people want to avoid.

Human Capital — Council for Economic Education — a short explainer defining human capital as the skills, knowledge, and experience a worker brings to a job, with ways to build it such as training, a certificate, or a degree. Its best minute is on opportunity cost: the hours spent in class are hours not earning a wage, so the choice weighs future pay against present costs. The lifetime-earnings figure it shows comes without a source this course has checked; the course does not use or grade it. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)
Annual Earnings by Educational Attainment — National Center for Education Statistics — the federal statistics agency's indicator page on what full-time, year-round workers aged 25 to 34 earn by level of education, with the data year stated on the page. Read the Median Earnings of Workers section, which reports that, in general, workers with more education had higher median earnings in each year the page covers. It describes a pattern; it does not say how much of the gap education itself causes, which is one of the things economists measure and debate. (reading, 5–9 min)

④ Debates about pay: positive and normative

Chapter 13, Section “Weigh three debates: positive versus normative” · Session 2, Segment 5, “Three debates about pay” · Remember: a claim about what a policy does can be checked with evidence, while a claim about whether it is worth it rests on values.

Labour market — Cité de l'Économie (Citéco) — an animated tour of a tiny imaginary country whose miners lose their jobs when their product is replaced. A minimum wage raises the lowest pay but may push some firms to use machines instead, and three imaginary countries then try three responses: no minimum wage, a minimum wage with lower payroll charges, or paid training. Near the end it pairs the three responses with three real countries; treat that pairing loosely, since the United States does have a federal minimum wage (see the Department of Labor page below). Its remarks that a response creates "a two-tier society" or that "everyone's happy" are the video's own judgments. It ends by saying economists have not settled which works best. As you watch, sort each claim into what a policy does, which is positive, and whether it is fair or worth the cost, which is normative. (video, 6 min) (captions: automatic)
The Minimum Wage Explained in One Minute — One Minute Economics — a quick history of wage rules, then three arguments critics make and three that supporters make, each at full strength. It closes by saying economists do not know whether minimum wage laws are good or bad; the chapter splits that into two questions, how large the job effect is, which is positive, and whether the trade-off is worth it, which is normative. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)
Minimum Wage — U.S. Department of Labor — the agency's page for the federal minimum wage, the real price floor in the labor market, with links to state minimums. Read the opening statement of the federal rate and its effective date, then notice that many states set their own higher minimums. (reading, 2–4 min)
Employee rights, the right to form a union — National Labor Relations Board — the federal agency's short page on how workers can choose a union, through an election or an employer's voluntary recognition, and the employer's duty to bargain once a union is in place. Read it for the facts behind union bargaining; it describes the process and takes no side on whether unions raise or lower jobs. (reading, 2–3 min)
Fact Sheet 13: Employee or Independent Contractor Classification Under the FLSA — U.S. Department of Labor — the agency's fact sheet on how it tells an employee from an independent contractor, the line at the center of the gig-work debate. Read the opening and the list of six factors, such as control over the work and the worker's chance of profit or loss; only employees are covered by the federal minimum wage and overtime rules. A notice at the top says the rule behind the fact sheet is in litigation and that a replacement has been proposed, so read the six factors as one version of a test that is still changing. (reading, 6–8 min)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Human Capital — Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, Econlib — a signed reference entry on why schooling, training, and health count as capital. Read the first two paragraphs and the one explaining that forgone earnings, not tuition, make up most of the cost of college, the same opportunity-cost idea the chapter uses. Skip the long middle on earnings trends from past decades and the closing paragraphs on economic growth, which belong to a different course. (reading, 5–7 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

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