EC2066 Microeconomics
Notes
There has been a minor revision to this syllabus.
Students may bring into the examination hall their hand held electronic calculator. If calculators are used they must satisfy the requirements listed in Section 4, Assessment for the programme, of the Detailed Regulations.Prerequisites (applies to degree students only)
EC1002 Introduction to economics andeither MT105A Mathematics 1 or MT1174 Calculus.
Syllabus
The course examines how economic decisions are made by households and firms, and how they interact to determine the quantities and prices of goods and factors of production and the allocation of resources. It also investigates the principles of microeconomic policy and the role of government in allocating resources. The topics covered are:
- Consumer choice and demand, including utility functions and indifference curves, income and substitution effects, and inter-temporal choice.
- Uncertainty and the economics of information: choice under uncertainty, insurance markets, and asymmetric information.
- Producer theory: production and cost functions, firm and industry supply.
- Market structure: competition, monopoly, oligopoly and the new industrial economics.
- Factor markets: pricing labour and capital services and capital assets.
- General equilibrium and welfare: economic efficiency and equity; competitive equilibrium; welfare criteria.
- Welfare economics: market failures arising from monopoly, externalities and public goods.
- Government and the theory of public choice.
A knowledge of constrained maximisation and Lagrangian functions as covered in MT105A Mathematics 1 would be helpful for students taking this subject.
In the original text, EC2066 Microeconomics was listed in the syllabus notes as being an exclusion with MN3028 Managerial economics. There is no exclusion and the syllabus notes have been amended accordingly.
