In principles of micro, you typically teach a few core ideas repeatedly. These are marginal benefits and marginal costs, equilibrium, supply and demand. You get into decision theory because even though economics has historically been about how best to allocate scarce resources, modern societies use markets for most of that, and markets depend on voluntary contributions and voluntary pursuits. And that leads you inevitably into decision theories which is partly why economics became so closely connected to theories of behavior.
One idea you would often teach is the idea of the fixed cost or the sunk cost. In theory of the firm, it was typically the fixed cost — a large machine or factory or some other capital expenditure that was needed for production but which did not vary with output. And from that you’d get particular shapes in average cost curves, discussions of economies of scale, and implications for competition and market dominance.
But in our private lives, when we aren’t firms, …
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