The Hidden Logic of Prices: Microeconomics from the Ground Up

Thousands of WWII prisoners received perfectly identical food parcels — so why did a bustling economy with quoted prices, a currency, and profit-making middlemen erupt among them within weeks, with no one in charge?

Water keeps you alive; diamonds are useless rocks. So why do diamonds cost more? The answer puzzled economists for a century.

Discover why you'd pay a lot for the first slice of pizza but almost nothing for the fifth — and what that means for prices.

Why does producing more sometimes get cheaper, and sometimes brutally expensive? Follow a farmer's fields to find out.

No one commands what eggs or apartments should cost. So how do millions of strangers land on the same price?

A small supply hiccup doubles some prices and barely moves others. What makes a market twitchy?

Cities capped rents to help tenants. Something strange happened to the apartments. What do price controls actually control?

Every purchase creates value that no receipt shows. Learn to see — and measure — the hidden surplus in every deal.

Why would a business keep running at a loss? Untangle fixed costs, variable costs, and when quitting actually makes sense.

Open a successful food truck and watch what happens next. Why do profits in some markets always melt away?

What changes when a firm has no rivals? Explore how monopolies choose prices — and who pays for their power.

A factory profits, a neighborhood chokes. Why do markets ignore some costs entirely — and what can fix it?