Academic
Microeconomics
Building on the foundations developed in Macroeconomics, this course in Microeconomics offers students a more in-depth look at various markets and how consumers interact. Students will begin to understand how even the concepts studied at the macro level are applicable on the smallest of scales as certain economic principles are just that concrete. Throughout the course, students will gain a thorough understanding of how markets self-correct and/or what needs to happen in order for common problems to be resolved. Students will study the both the public and private sectors, price movements depending on supply and demand principles as well as the effects of and on export and import levels. With a constant eye toward scarcity of resources, students will explore various accepted models from well-known economists, evaluate government action or inaction, analyze the impact of tax policy and income distribution. The foundation students will gain from completing this course in Microeconomics is sure to serve them for years to come regardless of their current or future profession.
The purpose of the course is for students to develop a logical, conceptual, and analytical understanding of microeconomic principles. This course introduces foundational concepts of economic principles, such as opportunity costs and supply and demand, and explores primary microeconomic principles, including efficiency and fairness in markets, government actions and their impacts, the decisions that consumers and producers make, different market structures from perfect competition to monopoly, and factor markets and income distribution. Students are presented with real-world contemporary examples that apply theory to practice, demonstrating the relevance of microeconomic thought.
Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Analyze the economic way of thinking
- Explain how free and competitive markets allocate resources through the interaction of supply and demand
- Evaluate the different effects caused by changes in demand and supply conditions
- Evaluate the models used by economists to explain how efficient production decisions are made in an environment of scarcity
- Evaluate the impacts of government actions in markets on efficiency and fairness
- Analyze the impacts of taxes on consumers, producers, employers, and workers
- Evaluate the benefits and costs of international trade
- Assess the provision and importance of public goods
- Evaluate methods of efficiently dealing with negative externalities
- Determine how rational consumers make choices to maximize their satisfaction
- Analyze a firm’s short-run and long-run costs
- Analyze the decisions made by a firm operating in perfectly competitive markets
- Analyze the behavior of a monopoly
- Evaluate how firms in monopolistic competition and oligopoly determine their profit-maximizing strategies
- Evaluate the way factor markets determine a society’s distribution of income
This class includes the following eText:
Bade and Parkin. (2011). Foundations of Microeconomics; 5/E; ISBN: 9780136123132
This course includes up to 10 hours of live chat tutoring.