Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Focused on basic competencies in microeconomics, this course is suitable for business and other students not intending to specialize in economics. Topics include gains from trade, supply and demand, prices, competition and monopoly, market failures, and government policies. Economic literacy is an important part of the course. Students who have taken ECON 103 first may not then take this course for further credit. Quantitative/Breadth-Soc.

COURSE DETAILS:

Goals of the Course

This course provides a basic introduction to key issues in Microeconomics. The main goal is twofold: to introduce the student to the main ideas and questions in Microeconomics and to introduce the student to modern and historical real-world debates, which reflect these ideas.
The objective of the course is that the students will learn not only the key debates and concepts in Microeconomics, but also gain an understanding of the real-world issues and their implications on society as a whole and on the students’ lives as individuals. Real-world events will be discussed to provide context for the abstract concepts and to motivate learning by connecting to the issues.
Students will also be introduced to experiments as a method for learning about economic behaviour. This practice serves both as a pedagogical tool to aid students experience some of the concepts discussed in the course and as a conceptual introduction to the field of experimental economics.

Organization of the Course

This course outline is based on 10 weeks of one two-hour lecture per week with the remaining weeks of lecture slots available for classroom experiments and three midterm exams.The first two midterms will count for 40% of the grade each, the last midterm will count for 20% of the grade. Most topics will likely be covered in one week but a few topics, especially those requiring experiments, may take a little longer to cover.
The course is structured as follows: For each topic, corresponding chapters from Mankiw et al.’s textbook Principles of Microeconomics are assigned as the main reading. Additionally, because one of the goals of the course is to introduce real-world applications, textbook chapters are supplemented by suggested resources on real-world topics that illustrate the concepts covered. The idea is to show students how the key concepts in economics translate into real-world issues. This helps students understand how the material is relevant to them and helps them be more informed about current economic affairs.
Supplementary materials for these topics are sourced from free online resources, mainly the free online textbook CORE Econ: The Economy, and sections from CORE Insights on the same website. Additional webpages or news articles may also be assigned for topics covered in each session.

Classroom Experiments
There will be two classroom experiments.
These experiments will be run using the free software provided on the webpage
https://economics-games.com/games
This webpage allows for experiments of up to 150 students at a time.
The first experiment will be about “Collective Action Problems” and the second experiment will be concerned with illustrating the idea of the “Tragedy of the Commons”.

Topics

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES
I. SCARCITY AND ECONOMIC TRADE-OFF
II. PRODUCTION POSSIBILITIES, COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE, AND TRADE
FUNDAMENTALS OF PRICE THEORY
III. SUPPLY, DEMAND, AND EQUILIBRIUM PRICE
IV. ELASTICITY
V. EFFICIENCY OF COMPETITIVE MARKETS
MARKET INEFFICIENCIES
VI. MONOPOLY AND INEFFICIENCY
VII. EXTERNALITIES
VIII. PUBLIC GOODS
IX. INFORMATION ASYMMETRIES AND INEFFICIENCY
X. LABOR MARKETS

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

RECOMMENDED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: