Note: This is the first post in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics.

For the past two years I’ve been rolling out a series of posts thatattempt to define and explain a range of economic terms from a Christian context. The goalof the series is to provide Christians with a basic level of understanding that will help us thinkmore clearly about how to apply mitments to economics and public policy.

But for Christians to understand how faith applies to these areaswe must first understand the basics of economics. So starting today as a corollary to the “What Christians Need to Know About Economics” series I’ll be posting newvideos each week that explain general economic concepts. Whether you learned this material in school (and have forgotten) or never learned it at all, you’ll likely be helped by watching these videos.

(If you find the pace of the videos too slow, I’d mend watching them at 1.5 to 2 times the speed. You can adjust the speed at which the video plays by clicking on “Settings” (the gear symbol) and changing “Speed” from normal to 1.25, 1.5 or 2.)

In this first video,economists Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok ofGeorge Mason University explain how we can use economics to explain much of what we encounter in our daily lives.