MIT 14.01 Principles of Microeconomics: study plan and how long it takes
The MIT OpenCourseWare playlist is 26 videos and 20.4 hours long. Here's how long it takes at different paces, a week-by-week schedule built from the real videos, and a planner that turns it into your own daily plan.
26 videos · 20.4 hours · MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT 14.01 (Fall 2023) is MIT's introductory microeconomics course: supply and demand, consumer choice and budget constraints, production and costs, competition and monopoly, oligopoly, input markets, choices over time, trade, social insurance, redistribution and taxation, behavioural economics and health care economics.
Lectures are about 50 minutes, with problem sets and exams on MIT OpenCourseWare.
Who it's for: Students taking intro microeconomics and anyone who wants a rigorous foundation in how markets work.
How long does it take?
The full playlist is 20.4 hours across 26 videos. Here's roughly how many days that is at different daily watch times and speeds, counting video time only:
| Daily time | At 1x | At 1.5x | At 2x |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 min a day | 41 days | 28 days | 21 days |
| 1 h a day | 21 days | 14 days | 11 days |
| 2 h a day | 11 days | 7 days | 6 days |
Make your own schedule
The playlist link is already filled in. Press Plan, set how much time you have each day and your speed, and you'll get a day-by-day schedule with a finish date and a calendar file. It reads the live playlist, so new videos are included.
Week-by-week schedule
A sample plan at 1 hour a day and normal speed, using whole videos so none is split across days. That's 4 weeks in total. For a different pace, start date or speed, use the planner above.
Week 1Videos 1–7 · 5h 16m
Day 1 · 38m
- 1Lec 1: Introduction to Principles of Microeconomics and Supply & Demand38m
Day 2 · 41m
- 2Lec 2: Preferences and Utility Function41m
Day 3 · 48m
- 3Lec 3: Budget Constraints and Constrained Choice48m
Day 4 · 47m
- 4Lec 4: Demand Curves and Income/Substitution Effects47m
Day 5 · 48m
- 5Lec 5: Production Theory48m
Day 6 · 46m
- 6Lec 6: Costs46m
Day 7 · 48m
- 7Lec 7: Competition I48m
Week 2Videos 8–14 · 5h 27m
Day 8 · 48m
- 8Lec 8: Competition II48m
Day 9 · 47m
- 9Lec 9: Supply and Demand & Consumer/Producer Surplus47m
Day 10 · 45m
- 10Lec 10: Welfare Economics45m
Day 11 · 47m
- 11Lec 11: Monopoly I47m
Day 12 · 47m
- 12Lec 12: Monopoly II47m
Day 13 · 48m
- 13Lec 13: Oligopoly I48m
Day 14 · 45m
- 14Lec 14: Oligopoly II45m
Week 3Videos 15–21 · 5h 43m
Day 15 · 51m
- 15Lec 15: Input Markets I—Labor Market51m
Day 16 · 50m
- 16Lec 16: Input Markets II—Labor and Capital50m
Day 17 · 49m
- 17Lec 17: Making Choices over Time49m
Day 18 · 48m
- 18Lec 18: Introduction to Trade48m
Day 19 · 48m
- 19Lec 19: International Trade: Welfare and Policy48m
Day 20 · 48m
- 20Lec 20: Uncertainty48m
Day 21 · 49m
- 21Lec 21: Social Insurance49m
Week 4Videos 22–26 · 4h
Day 22 · 50m
- 22Lec 22: Efficiency and Equity50m
Day 23 · 50m
- 23Lec 23: Government Redistribution and Taxation50m
Day 24 · 47m
- 24Lec 24: Externalities47m
Day 25 · 48m
- 25Lec 25: Behavioral Economics48m
Day 26 · 45m
- 26Lec 26: Health Care Economics45m
Tips for finishing
- Plan two or three lectures a week and work the problem sets; economics is learned by drawing graphs and solving problems.
- Crash Course Economics is a good, quick primer before you start.