Economics for EVERYONE! Beginner - Intermediate - Advanced

Recent topics (November 2026) :

• Introduction to happiness economics

• Utility, well-being, and life satisfaction

• Happiness versus life satisfaction versus worthwhileness

• Subjective well-being and self-report measures

• Income and happiness

• Diminishing marginal returns of income

• The $75,000 happiness claim and its criticisms

• Emotional well-being versus life evaluation

• Shadow pricing and the monetary value of happiness

• Frequent-flyer points and happiness value

• Money, security, and financial stress

• Debt and mental health

• Consumerism and status competition

• Reference income and social comparison

• The Easterlin Paradox

• Hedonic adaptation

• GDP and its limits as a measure of progress

• Gross National Happiness and alternative well-being frameworks

• Work, identity, and well-being

• Unemployment and unhappiness

• Inflation and happiness

• Commuting and quality of life

• Job quality and working hours

• Financial literacy and budgeting

• Children and money education

• Midlife dip and the U-shaped happiness curve

• Age and well-being across the lifespan

• Gender differences in well-being

• Marriage, children, and happiness

• Deaths of despair and labour market decline

• Health and happiness

• Diet, fruit and vegetable intake, and mental well-being

• Biological and interdisciplinary approaches to happiness

• Great apes and the U-shape hypothesis

• Public policy and happiness data

• COVID-19 and well-being

• Social media and falling happiness

• Housing affordability and cost-of-living pressures

• Freedom, choice, and well-being

• Relationships, friendship, and social trust

• Community, belonging, and meaning

• Globalisation and its effects on well-being

• Localisation as an alternative economic model

• Ladakh as a case study

• Local food systems, local business, and local banking

• Renewable energy and decentralised resilience

• Degrowth and post-growth thinking

• Japan’s adaptation to depopulation and ageing

• Transition Town Fujino

• Half Farmer, Half X

• Ama Town and sufficiency

• Well-being within ecological limits

• Evolutionary accounts of emotion

• Empathy gaps

• Counterfactual thinking, envy, and regret

• Feedback loops in negative emotions

• Depression as an evolutionary mismatch debate

• Happiness, policy, and the future of economics

EXAM PAPER

This course also includes an Exam Paper based on October 2026 state of the economy. The exam includes multiple choice, essays and data response.

There is also a Mark Scheme - how well will you do?

The October 2026 Budget Announcement (UK) is also assessed in this course.

Note : Topics included end October/beginning November 2026 include:

1. Globalisation and war — how economic interdependence can restrain conflict yet also generate strategic vulnerability.

2. The future of globalisation — trade is being rerouted through resilience, digitalisation, working capital, and AI.

3. Climate and growth — revisiting Stern’s claim that climate action is economically wiser than inaction.

4. Climate economics and moral value — why discounting the future can distort policy and devalue lives.

5. Market solutions to climate change — carbon pricing, valuing nature, and cutting methane efficiently.

6. Free-market climate policy — using prices rather than rigid targets to balance mitigation costs and benefits.

7. Climate adaptation as industry — resilience technologies and services as a growing economic opportunity.

8. Capitalism and long-term risk — whether markets can respond rationally to ecological breakdown.

9. AI and infrastructure demand — semiconductors, data centres, energy, and metals driving new trade patterns.

10. Digital trade and services — software, cloud, IP, and online commerce reshaping cross-border exchange.

11. Supply-chain resilience — firms redesigning production networks to cope with tariffs and geopolitical shocks.

12. Working capital and liquidity — finance becoming central to business survival in fragmented global markets.

13. Economic statecraft — trade, capital, and finance used as instruments of geopolitical power.

14. Interdependence and vulnerability — global links create prosperity but also expose states and firms to coercion.

15. Industrial strategy and technology — governments and firms competing through strategic investment and innovation.

16. Biodiversity and economic security — nature loss as an underestimated threat to prosperity and stability.

17. Adaptation versus mitigation — whether economies should prioritise prevention, resilience, or a changing balance of both.

18. Political economy of transition — who pays for decarbonisation, resilience, and the restructuring of growth.

    
    

    
    

    Economics is not a subject that should be taught through a static, outdated course. If you want a course that is current, intellectually serious, highly interactive, and taught with strong instructor involvement, this is designed for you.

The economy does not stand still — and neither should an economics course. This course is updated several times each month with new lectures, exercises, case studies, and regular educational announcements, so you are not simply enrolling on a fixed set of videos. You are joining a course that continues to develop in response to major real-world economic events and debates.

What makes this course different is simple: it is active.

Most online courses are uploaded once and then left alone. This one is not. Here, students are encouraged to participate, research, think independently, and engage in discussion, while benefiting from a high level of instructor involvement. Questions are answered, student work is discussed, and the course grows over time.

Recent learner feedback has praised the course for its clear, thoughtful, and non-ideological approach to economics, with an emphasis on real-world developments, engaging exercises, useful reading, and independent thinking. The aim is not passive viewing. The aim is to help you understand economics properly, apply it to the world around you, and strengthen your ability to think critically.

Why students learn well on this course

The best way to learn economics online is through a combination of:

• clear video lectures

• discussion and debate

• case studies

• quizzes and exercises

• research tasks

• active instructor support

That is exactly how this course is built.

Inside the course you will find:

• Hundreds of lectures

• Regularly updated content

• Frequent educational announcements

• Case studies and discussion-based learning

• Quizzes and multiple-choice exercises

• Research-based homework

• A highly active Q&A

• Strong and ongoing instructor engagement

The Q&A is especially important.

Many courses claim to be interactive, but very few genuinely are. In this course, there are 8,000+ posts where students share ideas, respond to exercises, discuss case studies, and test their understanding of economic issues. That matters because economics is not learned well through passive watching alone. It is learned through doing, questioning, researching, discussing, and refining your thinking.

Students here learn by:

• doing the work

• following real economic developments

• researching beyond the lectures

• sharing ideas

• having their reasoning challenged and improved

This takes time and effort — from both you and the instructor — but that is precisely why the learning experience is so much stronger.

What you will study

This course covers economics, macroeconomics, microeconomics, business economics, and global economics, while continually connecting theory to current events and policy debates.

Recent additions include topics such as:

• trade balances, current accounts, and bilateral deficit narratives

• gains from trade, tariffs, retaliation, and trade war dynamics

• elasticity, substitution effects, trade diversion, and exchange rates

• inflation transmission from trade policy and policy uncertainty

• climate externalities, climate risk, resilience finance, and insurance withdrawal

• energy market design, reliability, storage economics, and electricity demand

• AI, productivity, automation, labour markets, bargaining power, and job polarisation

• competition policy, rent concentration, and the changing balance between labour and capital

• economic statecraft, sanctions, deterrence, signalling, and strategic interaction

• structured finance, risk allocation, information asymmetry, and liquidity

• agglomeration economies, FDI, industrial policy, institutions, and political legitimacy

The course also includes case studies on artificial intelligence, autonomy, critical thinking, inequality, education, governance, ethics, and economic power, helping students understand not only economic theory, but also the broader structural changes shaping the modern world.

Who this course is for

This course is for you if you want:

• a serious introduction to economics or a deeper understanding of it

• a course that connects theory to current events

• regularly updated material rather than static content

• meaningful instructor engagement

• discussion, exercises, and case-based learning

• a thoughtful, balanced, and non-ideological approach

• to build a strong understanding of economics, macroeconomics, and microeconomics in a practical way

Before you enrol

If you are looking for a short course to play in the background and finish quickly, this may not be the right fit.

But if you want a course that is current, rigorous, interactive, and genuinely taught, with regular updates and real instructor involvement, then this course is for you.

Come prepared to think, research, participate, and improve.
If you do, you will learn economics as it should be learned: actively, seriously, and in close connection with the real world.