IKT 201 - Micro-Economics I

The aim of this course is to teach you the tools of microeconomic analysis. These tools fall into two important categories:  

1. Models of decision making. (Almost) all economic analysis starts with a model of how people make choices – for example how people decide what to buy, how much money to save, where to work and so on. This course will teach you the basic of the standard model of economic choice for consumers and firms. We will also touch on more advanced topics, specifically choice under uncertainty and behavioral economics 
 
2. Models of equilibrium. A key feature of economics is that it is interested in what happens when people interact. For example, in an economy with many consumers and firms, how are wages and prices determined, and who ends up with what stuff? This is the study of equilibrium. As well as ‘standard’ equilibrium analysis, we will also look at what happens when agents behave ‘strategically’. This is the study of game theory, which may or may not be as exciting as it sounds. 

This course aims to ensure that students grasp key concepts such as the market mechanism; how consumers make economic decisions in their daily lives; how producers make production decisions and minimize costs during the production process; the nature of government intervention in the market; how firms maximize profits under free-market conditions; how profit maximization is achieved in monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly markets; and how firms determine their demand for factors of production.