Economic science is based on a small number of fundamental principles; through targeted and repeated focus on these, students can truly internalize them.

These seven core principles are: rarity, cost-benefit, incentives, comparative advantage, increasing opportunity cost, efficiency, and equilibrium. Throughout the text, emphasis is placed on helping students "think like economists," that is, to use the principles of economic science to understand and explain what happens in the world around them.

Each chapter includes summary boxes that highlight and summarize the most important points of the material.