B/E281

Microeconomics, also known as price theory, is the study of how individuals and firms allocate scarce resources to competing ends. The focus of price theory is the role relative prices play in the decision-making of consumers, the operation of firms, the structure of markets, and the choices of resource suppliers and employers. Throughout the semester students will learn to use economic models and optimization techniques to analyze a variety of decision-making processes, including consumer utility optimization, and producer profit maximization in the contexts of perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly. Students will also learn to apply price theory to the analysis of airline regulation, taxicab licensing, racial and gender discrimination, the subprime mortgage crisis, impact of liability caps on the Gulf oil disaster, etc. By the end of the semester students will master the basic tenets of price theory and will be able to use them in the analysis of empirical problems. Students cannot receive credit for both B/E-360 (E/M-260) and B/E-281 (E/M-281). Prerequisites: B/E-107 or E/M-108 and E/M-109, MCS-142, and MCS-121 or MCS-119. Fall semester.

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