The foundations of microeconomic thinking: scarcity, opportunity cost, comparative advantage, and the production possibilities curve. Students learn how economists model decision-making and why specialization and trade benefit all parties.
The core model of microeconomics. Students analyse the laws of supply and demand, market equilibrium, price ceilings and floors, and the effects of shifts in supply and demand. Elasticity concepts and their applications are covered in depth.
How firms make production decisions. Topics include the law of diminishing returns, short-run and long-run costs, profit maximization, and the behaviour of perfectly competitive firms and industries in both the short run and long run.
Market structures beyond perfect competition. Students examine monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly — how firms with market power make pricing and output decisions, the welfare implications of market power, and antitrust policy.
How markets for labour, land, and capital work. Students apply supply and demand to resource markets, examine wage determination, the marginal revenue product of labour, and the role of monopsony and unions in labour markets.
When markets fail to allocate resources efficiently. Topics include externalities, public goods, information asymmetry, and income inequality. Students evaluate government policies — taxes, subsidies, regulations — designed to correct market failures.