Analyze microeconomic principles and the economic decisions consumers, firms, and the government face regarding economic resources, scarcity, market demand and supply, production costs, and opportunity costs.
Microeconomics is the branch of economics that pertains to consumer behavior and the economic decisions of producers and the government. It includes the topics of supply and demand, the elasticity of demand and supply, production costs, utility and profit maximization, and market structures.
When discussing the economy, we refer to the marketplace or economic system where the choices of all economic agents interact. This course explores how and why we make economic decisions and how our choices affect the economy. Each unit is a building block. By the end of this course, you will be able to grasp the major issues microeconomists face, including consumer and producer behavior, supply and demand, how different markets function, and the welfare outcomes of consumers and producers. We also examine how formal principles and concepts apply to real-world issues.
- Unit 1: Introduction to Economics
- Unit 2: Supply and Demand
- Unit 3: Elasticity and its Applications
- Unit 4: Markets and Maximizing Individual Behavior
- Unit 5: Introduction to Consumer Choice
- Unit 6: The Producer
- Unit 7: Market Structure: Competitive and Non-Competitive Markets
- Unit 8: The Role of the Government in a Market Economy
- Explain the basic assumptions in economic thinking to show how individual economic agents make rational choices for optimizing the use of scarce resources;
- Analyze the factors that affect market demand and market supply, and illustrate their interaction for achieving equilibrium in price and quantity;
- Explain the maximization principle in economics and the tools of government intervention for solving market failure when there are problems in the efficient allocation of resources;
- Explain how consumers make rational choices using the concept of utility, including the principle of diminishing marginal utility;
- Analyze how the producer applies the marginal decision rule to maximize profit in producing goods or services when combining factors of production – labor, capital, and natural resources – in both the short run and long run;
- Illustrate the interaction of market demand and market supply in the various perfectly competitive markets, non-competitive markets, and imperfectly competitive markets;
- Apply economic models in public finance, public choice, and for solving environmental issues; and
- Explain the economics of the environment, especially by applying economic tools for moving the economy toward an efficient level of environmental pollution.