Introduction

This course introduces students to the essence of economics – the theories, concepts and ideas that form the economist’s tool kit encompassing both the microeconomic and macroeconomic environments. Microeconomic topics include demand and supply, elasticity, consumer choice, production, cost, profit maximization, market structure, and game theory while the Macroeconomic topics will be GDP, inflation, unemployment, aggregate demand, aggregate supply, fiscal and monetary policies, and exchange rates. In addition, basic concepts in international trade and finance will be discussed. It is critical for finance students to have a solid understanding of the economic climate within which their business operates along with an understanding of the economic factors involved in internal decision making.

Course Objective

1. Understand and be able to use economic terminology
2. Use strategic reasoning to understand and explain economic and financial events, and other social phenomena.
3. Use basic calculus to solve optimization problems faced by economic agents.
4. Understand how strategic behavior influences the decisions about which goods and services to produce, how to produce them, and who gets them.
5. Understand how government policies affect the allocation of resources in a market economy.
6. Understand how market structure (perfect competition, monopoly, duopoly and oligopoly) influences the allocation of resources.
7. Use economic reasoning to explain the strategic choices of individuals or organizations.

Course Outcomes

After successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Use supply and demand to explain various economic phenomena and principles.
2. Explain the measurement and importance of GDP, inflation, unemployment, money, and trade. Explain the economic meaning of price, elasticity, and production costs. Describe the cause and effect of changes in all of these variables.
3. Draw and analyze cost and revenue curves that maximize profit. Discuss differences and critically analyze the pros and cons of different market structures, including competitive, monopolistic and oligopolistic markets.
4. Read and explain the content of economic materials from a secondary source (such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, etc.) Relate economic concepts to these real world events and critically evaluate the impact of economic policy.

Textbook

• N. Gregory Mankiw. Principles of Economics, 8th edition. Cengage Learning.

Grading Policies