This course examines theory and policy analysis at microeconomic level. We will be concerned with establishing the conditions under which the market generates efficient solutions, and those conditions in which it presumably does not. In those cases where the market may not perform well, we will be interested in analyzing the impact of possible government policies on the outcome.
Overview
Syllabus
- 1 What Economics Is All About
- 1.1 Scarcity
- 1.2 Opportunity Cost
- 1.3 Production Possibilities Frontier
- 1.4 The Method of Economics
- 1.5 Why People Trade with Each Other
- 2 The Market Forces of Supply and Demand
- 2.1 Demand
- 2.2 Supply
- 2.3 Market Equilibrium
- 3 Elasticity and Its Application
- 3.1 The Price Elasticity of Demand
- 3.2 Applications of Elasticity
- 4 Consumers, Producers, and Market Efficiency
- 4.1 Consumer Surplus and Producer Surplus
- 4.2 Market Efficiency
- 5 Market failure and Microeconomic Policies
- 5.1 Externalities
- 5.2 Private Solutions to Externalities
- 5.3 Public Policies toward Externalities
- 5.4 Public Goods
- 5.5 Common Resources
- Mid-Term Exam (Units 1-5)
- 6 The Theory of Consumer Choice
- 6.1 What the Consumer Can Afford
- 6.2 What the Consumer Wants
- 6.3 What the Consumer Chooses
- 7 The Costs of Production
- 7.1 The Nature of the Firm
- 7.2 Production and Costs in the Short Run
- 7.3 Costs in the Long Run
- 8 Market Structure and Firm Behavior
- 8.1 The Four Types of Market Structure
- 8.2 A Competitive Firm’s Supply Decision
- 8.3 The Supply Curve in a Competitive Market
- 8.4 Why Monopolies Arise
- 8.5 Profit Maximization of a Monopoly
- 8.6 Public Policy toward Monopolies
- 8.7 Monopolistic Competition
- 8.8 Oligopoly
- 9 The Markets for the Factors of Production
- 9.1 The Labor Market
- 9.2 Earnings
- Final Exam
Taught by
Rong HU and Xiaojing JIANG
