Economics

Overview: This first course in economics focuses on how economics explains the behavior of people as they are confronted with choices. In a broad sense, microeconomics seeks to explain all choices (including how long the average student can be expected to study in this course). In a narrow sense, it concentrates on market behavior-- the buying and selling of goods and services. More specifically the course is designed for you to acquire:

• A way of thinking about behavior and social organization.

• A lasting interest in real-world problems in economics.

• A rigorous tool kit for doing economic analysis on those problems.

• The ability to use economic analysis as a part of the job of reaching well-considered judgments on major public policy issues.

While the course is about "theory" and the bulk of class time will be spent developing the abstract reasoning of microeconomic theory, a major goal of the course will be to convince you that can explain your "real world." Indeed, it is hoped that upon completion of the course you will realize that (1) you cannot be realistic in understanding the world without a theoretical framework and (2) many of the rules of thumb which you have learned from political oratory are bogus.

Class and readings will focus on the analysis of how people decide what to produce, how to produce, and for whom to produce in a market system. The course is an introduction to microeconomics; it is "micro" because we study how individual consumers behave, how businesses make decisions, and how specific markets function. The companion course, Principles of Macroeconomics, is about the economy as a whole, studying how markets and government produce inflation, economic growth, and unemployment.

You will be asked to do arithmetic and to use graphing techniques to summarize major concepts and relationships. The most important learning and the emphasis on the exams will be for you to explain economic analyses carefully and in...