EXC 3520 Microeconomics
EXC 3520 Microeconomics
Microeconomics deals with the behaviour of individual economic units, such as consumers, workers, investors, owners of land and business firms. Microeconomics explains how these units make economic decisions. Another important concern of microeconomics is how these economic units interact in markets and in industries.
Students will be trained in the systematic analysis of consumer and firm behaviour in various market situations, and shall learn to understand the efficiency of resource use given different market forms (perfect competition, monopoly and monopolistic competition). The exam contains more formal optimization problems than is customary in a standard course at "principles" level at a US university.
After completed course students shall:
- Be able to solve basic microeconomic optimization problems, and to understand the main principles of economic modelling.
- Be able to reason based on graphs and standard optimization problems, where the Lagrangian technique is mentioned, and they will develop both intuition and technical skills during the course.
Students will be encouraged to reflect on and distinguish between the impact market changes have on efficency versus their distributive effects, and to be conscious the distinction between efficiency goals and other considerations not captured by the market analysis.
- Introduction to microeconomic analysis
- Demand, supply and market equilibrium
- Consumer behaviour
- The budget constraint and consumer preferences
- Effects of changes in price and income levels
- Demand functions and elasticities
- Firm behaviour
- Production theory
- The optimal use of input factors
- The cost of production
- The profit objective
- Market theory
- Perfect competition
- Effects of taxation
- Monopoly
- Oligopoly
- Game theory
- Market forms and resource allocation.
The course comprises 36 hours of teaching and 6 hours of review of exercises and discussions in class.
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Higher Education Entrance Qualification
Covid-19
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there may be deviations in teaching and learning activities as well as exams, compared with what is described in this course description.
EXC 2910 Mathematics or equivalent.
Microeconomics is the standard introductory course in microeconomics. Algebra and elementary calculus are required as a background for students taking this course - up to and including partial derivatives.
| Assessments |
|---|
Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Written submission Invigilation Weight: 100 Grouping: Individual Support materials:
Duration: 5 Hour(s) Exam code: EXC35202 Grading scale: ECTS Resit: Examination every semester |
| Activity | Duration | Comment |
|---|---|---|
Teaching | 36 Hour(s) | |
Feedback activities and counselling | 6 Hour(s) | Review of assignments in plenary |
Prepare for teaching | 36 Hour(s) | |
Group work / Assignments | 49 Hour(s) | |
Student's own work with learning resources | 68 Hour(s) | |
Examination | 5 Hour(s) |
A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 7,5 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of at least 200 hours.