Professor Randall Bartlett
Principles of economic thinking
1. People respond to incentives.
If you reward a behavior, people will do more of it and more intensely; if you penalize it, they'll do less of it.
2. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
In a world of limited resources there will always be scarcity; any use of time or limited resources for one purpose is an opportunity forever gone to use them for another.
More of anything always means less of something else. [Opportunity cost]
3. No thing is just one thing; there are always at least two sides to every interaction.
4. The law of unanticipated influences. [There is always a possibility of unanticipated influence]
5. The law of unintended consequences. In an interconnected world, actions always have multiple consequences.
6. No one is, and no one ever can be, in complete control.
Core concepts
The core concepts provide context for the principles.