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Xi'an Jiaotong University

The Economic Way of Thinking

Xi'an Jiaotong University via XuetangX

Overview

The MOOC course is suitable for teachers and students in the course of Economic Principles (at the micro-level) and of The Economic Way of Thinking. It aims to provide students with an economic perspective about the world. In this course, the traditional teaching approach, which focuses on imparting knowledge systematically, is not adopted. Instead, essential microeconomic concepts and theories are selected and they are discussed about in a popular and interesting style. It is expected that students will command the essense of these topics and will start to think about and interpret the world phenoma in the economic way.

The MOOC course consists of 10 chapters, including the introduction, basic economic principles, demand, supply and equilibrium, economic efficiency and elasticity, taxation and subsidy, government regulation and market counterattack, enterprises and entrepreneurs, market structure and pricing, and information and asymmetric information.


Syllabus

  • 1 Introduction
    • 1.1 Is economics useful?
    • 1.2 What is economics?
    • 1.3 Hypothesis of Rational Man
    • 1.4 Hypothesis of Rational Man: examples
    • 1.5 Self-interest Hypothesis
    • 1.6 Self interest and Theory of Evolution
    • 1.7 Self interest and social progress
    • 1.8 Further considerations about basic hypotheses
  • 2 Basic Principles of Economics
    • 2.1 Cost (1)
    • 2.2 Cost (2)
    • 2.3 Rational people think at the margin
    • 2.4 Incentives and responses
    • 2.5 Division of labor and trade
    • 2.6 Problems with the centralized planned economy
    • 2.7 Why do we still need the government?
    • 2.8 Market or government?
    • Chapter 2 test
  • 3 Demand, Supply and Equilibrium
    • 3.1 Demand
    • 3.2 Supply
    • 3.3 Equilibrium and the law of supply and demand
    • 3.4 Arbitrage
    • 3.5 Price being the cost
    • 3.6 Price being a relative Price
    • 3.7 There is no counter-example of the law of demand
    • 3.8 Application of the law of demand
    • Chapter 3 test
  • 4 Economic Efficiency and Economic Elasticity
    • 4.1 Consumer surplus and producer surplus
    • 4.2 The Pareto criterion
    • 4.3 Demand elasticity I
    • 4.4 Demand elasticity II
    • 4.5 Supply elasticity
    • 4.6 Other types of elasticity
    • Chapter 4 test
  • 5 Taxation and Subsidy
    • 5.1 Taxation (1)
    • 5.2 Taxation (2)
    • 5.3 Subsidy
    • 5.4 Elasticity and arbitrage
    • Chapter 5 test
  • 6 Government Regulation and Market Counterattack
    • 6.1 Price ceiling (1)
    • 6.2 Price ceiling (2)
    • 6.3 Price floor
    • 6.4 Quantity regulation
    • 6.5 Regulation and market equilibrium
    • 6.6 What does the market price decide?
    • Chapter 6 test
  • 7 Enterprises and Entrepreneurs
    • 7.1 Enterprises: organizational structure and goals
    • 7.2 The nature of enterprises
    • 7.3 Refined calculation of transaction costs
    • 7.4 Scale and boundary of enterprises
    • 7.5 Separation of ownership and control
    • 7.6 Who owns the enterprise?
    • 7.7 Functions of entrepreneurs
    • 7.8 Entrepreneurship and profits
    • 7.9 Entrepreneurship and market process
    • 7.10 Functions of profits and losses
    • 7.11 Rise and fall of enterprises
    • 7.12 Several issues about enterprise production
    • Chapter 7 test
  • 8 Market Structure and Pricing
    • 8.1 Perfectly competitive market
    • 8.2 Monopoly
    • 8.3 Oligopoly
    • 8.4 Monopolistic competition
    • 8.5 Overview on pricing strategies
    • 8.6 The first-degree price discrimination
    • 8.7 The second-degree price discrimination
    • 8.8 The third-degree price discrimination
    • 8.9 Non-monetary costs and three degrees of price discrimination
    • 8.10 How to segment the market?
    • 8.11 Bundling sale
    • Chapter 8 test
  • 9 Public Goods and Externalities
    • 9.1 Definition of public goods
    • 9.2 Optimal provision of public goods
    • 9.3 Private provision of public goods
    • 9.4 Definition of the externality
    • 9.5 Externalities and resource allocation inefficiency
    • 9.6 Private solutions to externalities
    • 9.7 Public policies toward externalities (1)
    • 9.8 Public policies toward externalities (2)
    • Chapter 9 test
  • 10 Information and Asymmetric Information
    • 10.2 Asymmetric Information (1)
    • 10.3 Asymmetric Information (2)
    • 10.4 Asymmetric Information (3)
    • 10.5 Asymmetric Information (4)
    • 10.6 Principal-agent theory (1)
    • 10.7 Principal-agent theory (2)
    • Chapter 10 test
    • 10.1 Overview of information
  • final examination

    Taught by

    Yu Weihua

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