This course will help you understand decisions that are made in the face of constraints, such as the everyday transactions you make in the marketplace. As a consumer, you must consider your overall income when making a purchase, but business managers must take into account the presence of competitors in the marketplace when deciding on the price to charge you for a product.The course is divided into four parts:

• In part I, you’ll gain an understanding of how consumers make decisions on the types and quantities of goods to purchase.
• In part II, you’ll learn how managers decide how much to produce, the price to set for their products, and the amounts and types of inputs to buy.
• In part III, the focus will be on the interaction between consumers and producers and the concepts of equilibrium and efficiency.
• The final part of this course focuses on market distortions that are introduced by governments, such as taxes and tariffs, or those that result from the nature of the products produced or consumed.

What you’ll learn

• Explain how consumers decide what products to purchase and how much to purchase.
• Explain how producers decide how much to produce, how many inputs to use and what price to charge for their products.
• Describe how the interaction of consumers and producers in competitive markets generates the market price and the quantity consumed and produced.
• Explain the concept of efficiency and describe how markets often lead to efficient outcomes.
• Explain how market distortions occur and their impact on the welfare of producers and consumers.

What to expect in class

Video and audio lectures, Readings, Interative elements, homework assignments, quizzes, midterm and final exams, content mastery exercises.

Exams and grading

• 15% - Homework (13)
• 20% - Quizzes (7)
• 25% - Midterm Exam
• 35% - Final Exam
• 5% - Content Mastery (13)