Course Code: ECON-101
Title: Principles of Microeconomics
Credit Hours: 03
Objectives:
This course is meant to be an introduction to the decision-making process of households, firms, and government, and the resulting allocation of resources through markets. The course examines how individuals and firms make decisions by weighing up costs and benefits, and how the interaction of their decisions leads to market and social outcomes. The objective of the course is to provide students with a clear understanding of the subject of economics as it pertains to the behavior of consumers, firms, and markets.
Course Contents
Preliminaries
- The Themes of Microeconomics
- Scarcity and Economics
- what is a Market?
- Real versus Nominal Prices
- Why Study Microeconomics?
Consumer Choice
Cardinal Approach/Utility Analysis:
- Marginal Utility
- Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility
- Law of Equi-Marginal Utility
- Consumer equilibrium.
Ordinal Approach of Consumer Behavior:
- Indifference Curves
- Features of Indifference Curves
- Budget Line
- Consumer Equilibrium
Comparative Statics
The Basics of Demand & Supply
The Market Mechanism:
- Demand and Supply
- Factors effecting the market forces
- Changes in Market Equilibrium
Elasticities
- Price Elasticity of Demand
- Price Elasticity of Supply
- Point versus Arc Elasticities
- Computing Elasticities
- Price Elasticity and Total Expenditure
- Cross-Price Elasticity of Demand
- Income Elasticity of Demand
Price Changes and Welfare
- Consumer Surplus and producer surplus
- Price effect
- Income effect
- Substitution Effect
Technology and Production
- The Technology of Production
- Production with one Variable Input (Labour)
- Production with two Variables Inputs
- Returns to Scale
Cost and Revenue
Measuring Cost:
- WhichCostsMatter?
- Costs in the Short Run
- Costs in the Long Run
- Long Run versus Short Run Cost Curves
- Average, Total, Marginal cost curves.
Measuring revenue:
- Total, Average, and Marginal revenue.
Market Structures
- Introduction to markets:
- Perfect competition
- Monopoly
- Monopolistic competition
- Oligopoly
- Difference in revenue between perfect competition and other market
- Profit Maximization
- Derivation of supply curve under perfect competition
Introduction to factor markets
Recommended Books:
- Gans, J.S., King, S.P. & Mankiw, N.G. (2012). Principles of Microeconomics (5th ), Cengage Learning.
- Colander, Principles of Microeconomics
- Bernanke, Principles of Microeconomics
Supplementary Material:
- McConnell, C., & Bruce, S. (2006). Principles of Economics (17th ). McGraw-Hill.
- Fuller, N. (1997). Principles of Microeconomics. UK: Tudor Business
Past Papers Punjab University: