Microeconomics

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Magenta and orange hand-drawn rabbit accepts a zero-dollar video lesson ticket while a cheerful clock highlights time and attention; compare privacy and benefits alongside the money price.

Zero Money Price vs. Economic Cost: Why Free Has Tradeoffs

A zero money price can still carry an economic cost. Compare time, attention, privacy and switching costs with the benefits of a free service.

Scratchy blue ink comic of puffin classmates joining a smartphone clubhouse, showing a direct network effect as their participation makes a study-group messaging app more useful.

Network Effects: Growth, Competition and Concentration

Learn how network effects shape platform growth and competition. Compare direct and indirect effects, multihoming, portability and interoperability.

Hand-painted comic of an octopus dispatcher connecting a mouse restaurant, badger customer and turtle courier on linked seesaws, illustrating how platform fees and rules affect participation across groups.

Platform Markets: How Interdependent Groups Interact

Sepia pen and blue watercolor comic of a beaver making clear keep and reschedule options on an appointment reminder while a woman freely chooses, illustrating choice architecture and personal agency.

Choice Architecture: Evaluate Evidence and Preserve Agency

Lavender oil-pastel comic shows the same student planning on Monday to study before a movie, then reaching for the movie remote on Saturday, illustrating a preference reversal when effort becomes immediate.

Present Bias: Why Plans Change When the Moment Arrives

Red and black scratchboard comic of a crab magician framing six dollars per month as seventy-two dollars over twelve months, while a snail asks whether payment dates, fees and cancellation terms are the same.

Attention and Framing: How Presentation Affects Choices

Kraft-paper charcoal comic of a porcupine carpenter offering a repair guarantee as a signal while a raccoon buyer asks to inspect the table joints as a screen, distinguishing who initiates each action.

Signaling vs. Screening: How They Build Trust Differently

Jade and amber brush-ink comic of a helmeted gecko beside a bicycle, considering an extra lock after receiving insurance, illustrating how coverage can change the private payoff to precautions.

Moral Hazard: How Agreements Change Hidden Behavior

Blue ballpoint and raspberry comic of a fox offering two hundred dollars for look-alike used washing machines; one seller leaves while another accepts, illustrating how hidden quality changes market participation.

Adverse Selection: Hidden Quality and Market Participation

Peach and turquoise sidewalk-chalk comic of pigeons searching by car around three occupied parking spaces after the meter becomes free, illustrating a possible second-round response and search-time cost.

Economic Feedback: Follow the Response After the First

Lavender-pencil comic of shoppers asking whether a bag fee reduces bag use and whether it is fair, distinguishing positive analysis of effects from normative evaluation using values.

Positive vs. Normative Economics: Facts and Value Judgments

Hand-tinted etching comic of a traveler using a subway map with four station connections while a puzzled nearby tree asks why it is omitted, illustrating purposeful simplification in economic models.

Economic Models: Assumptions, Ceteris Paribus and Limits

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