The principal goal of the course is to help students develop the ability to make evidence based economic decisions using the concepts, models, and tools studied in the course. At completion of the course students are expected to:

SLO 1

Use the demand-and-supply model to predict and explain the directions of price and quantity changes in competitive markets in response to various events and economic policies.

SLO 2

Analyze consumer behavior using standard economic models of consumer choice as well as insights from behavioral economics.

SLO 3

Relate firms’ cost to their production functions and apply the concepts of opportunity cost, sunk cost, fixed cost, variable cost, and marginal cost to calculate firms’ costs and analyze their decisions.

SLO 4

Conduct marginal analysis to find optimal output and price decisions for firms operating in various market structures (perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly).