Microeconomics

 

Course Description & Learning Outcomes

Microeconomics is the study of how individuals, households, firms, and government make decisions to allocate limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants. After completion of this course, students will be able to:

 

• Identify the many consequences of scarcity and explain how changes in opportunity costs affect behavior.
• Articulate the inter-workings of the market system including how the interaction of supply and demand answers the three economic questions of what to produce, how to produce, and who to produce for.   
• Analyze and discuss the production of goods & services through the perspective of the firm and the profit motive. Compare and contrast the four market structures of perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and perfect monopoly. Understand how firm behavior relates to the supply-side of the marketplace.
• Analyze and discuss the consumption of goods & services through the perspective of the consumer and the utility motive. Understand how individual behavior relates to the demand-side of the marketplace.
• Analyze market failures: the conditions whereby market outcomes are substandard from society’s perspective. Understand the role and effectiveness of government intervention when markets fail.