---
id: "prereq-microeconomics"
type: "prereq"
source_timestamps: ["¶3", "¶4", "¶5"]
tags: ["economics"]
related: ["concept-induced-demand", "concept-complementarity"]
reason: "Required to understand why AI making coding cheaper will actually increase the demand for high-level software engineering and judgment."
sources: ["futures"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-futures"
originDay: 2
articleStem: "hbr-cl-84-big-tech-capability-crisis"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/06/big-techs-looming-capability-crisis"
sourceTitle: "Big Tech’s Looming Capability Crisis"
---
# Basic Microeconomics (Induced Demand & Complements)

## Prerequisite — Basic Microeconomics

The authors assume undergraduate-level economics: how lowering the cost of a good affects demand ([[concept-induced-demand|induced demand]]) and how it affects the value of related goods ([[concept-complementarity|complementarity]]).

**Why it's required:** without it, the counterintuitive core claim — that making coding cheaper *increases* demand for high-level engineering and judgment — is unintelligible.

> Enrichment: the broader background is the *directed technical change / induced demand* literature and *task-based labor economics* (technology changes task composition rather than simply replacing occupations).