Byeong-Hak Choe

August 31, 2026

Foundations + time · Week 02

From market equilibrium to social efficiency

Review the annual timber market, practice the tools with a fishery, and then ask what changes when timber harvest imposes costs outside the market.

Aug 31–Sep 4Lecture 2 → Classwork 1 → Lecture 3 → Classwork 2

Focus

  • Demand, supply, equilibrium, and surplus
  • Resource stocks versus harvest flows
  • Private versus social marginal cost

Prepare

  • Review prior supply-and-demand notes
  • Read TL Chapter 2
  • Bring a calculator for Classwork 1

Practice

  • Solve a fish-harvest market
  • Add omitted harm to the timber market
  • Compare market and efficient harvest

Guiding question

When the annual timber market clears, what costs can its price still leave out?

Learning targets

  • Solve a competitive market and measure gains from trade.
  • Distinguish a resource stock from an annual harvest flow.
  • Translate a negative external effect into a marginal social cost curve.
  • Identify the market quantity, efficient quantity, and welfare loss.
  • Explain how a Pigouvian instrument changes incentives.

Class plan

Move What we will do
Review Use Lecture 2 to rebuild the timber-market benchmark
Practice Use Classwork 1 to solve a fish market and connect harvest flow to stock
Extend Use Lecture 3 to add timber-harvest damage to the private marginal cost
Synthesize Compare market clearing with social efficiency

Lecture slides

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Lecture 2 · Microeconomics Review for Natural Resource Economics View slides
Lecture 3 · Summary of Externality Theory View slides

This week’s materials

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