Microeconomics for Life: Smart Choices for You, 1st edition

Published by Pearson (12 March 2026) © 2027

  • Avi J. Cohen University of Toronto , York University
  • Scott Wolla Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis , Assistant Vice President & Economic Education Officer
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  • Instant access once purchased
  • Anytime, anywhere learning with the Pearson+ app

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  • Search, highlight and take notes
  • Watch embedded videos with select titles
  • Easily create flashcards
 
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Title overview

Microeconomics for Life presents concepts and strategies for making smart economic choices as a consumer, businessperson and citizen. Rather than simply training economists, it takes a literacy-targeted (LT) approach to help you “think economically.” By prioritizing practical scenarios over theory and formulas, Cohen and Wolla aim to help guide your career and life choices.

To meet the needs of economics majors, the text supports various approaches to teaching microeconomic principles: LT, traditional and model-focused, and combined approaches. Three Keys to Smart Choices, a framework for economic decision-making, is visually represented throughout the content to help you choose which direction to take at key junctures.

Table of contents

  1. What’s in Economics for You? Scarcity, Opportunity Cost, Trade, and Models
  2. Making Smart Choices: The Law of Demand
  3. Show Me the Money: The Law of Supply
  4. Coordinating Smart Choices: Demand and Supply
  5. Just How Badly Do You Want It? Elasticity
  6. What Gives When Prices Don’t? Government Policy Choices
  7. Getting the Most Bang per Buck: Utility behind Demand
  8. Finding Producers’ Bottom Line: Profits and Cost Behind Supply
  9. Pricing Power: Market Structure and Pricing
  10. What’s Perfect About Perfect Competition? Productivity, Costs, and Efficiency
  11. Pricing for Profits in Imperfect Competition: Marginal Revenue and Marginal Cost
  12. When Markets Fail: Natural Monopoly, Gaming, Competition, and Government
  13. Acid Rain on Others’ Parades: Externalities, Carbon Taxes, Free Riders, and Public Goods
  14. What Are You Worth? Inputs, Incomes, and Inequality
  15. Are Sweatshops all Bad? Globalization, Trade, and Protectionism

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