ECON 1 - Introduction to Economics, Fall 2026

Econ 1 is Berkeley’s introduction to economic principles and their applications, taught by Jim Campbell. The course covers both halves of the subject: microeconomics, about how people make individual and collective decisions in a world of scarcity, and macroeconomics, about the dynamics and measurement of the economy as a whole. Rather than only presenting models, it asks how economics is done, what economists study, what the discipline can contribute to debates about public policy, and where the limits of the economic approach lie. These principles are applied to topics such as climate change, immigration, healthcare, financial crises, housing, unemployment, international trade agreements, and the minimum wage. The course is built around a course pack and lecture notes written by the instructor, which blend traditional textbook economics with historical and political context.

I serve as a Reader for the course. My role is limited to office hours and grading.

Suggested books

Both textbooks are freely available online. The course draws on the two of them for their different perspectives: OpenStax is closer to a traditional principles textbook, with clear treatments of the fundamental models and concepts, while CORE puts more weight on history, applications and data.