Dr Catherine Thomas NAB 5.27

This course is compulsory on the BSc in Management. This course is available on the BSc in Business Mathematics and Statistics. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course is available with permission to General Course students.

Economics A (EC100) or Economics B (EC102) or equivalent is a pre-requisite. This course cannot be combined with Microeconomic Principles I (EC201) or Microeconomic Principles II (EC202).

The objective of the course is to provide students with insights from economic theory which are relevant to applications in managerial decision making. The emphasis is on applying microeconomics ideas to solve problems. Topics covered include consumer theory, production, applications to the labour market, market structure, monopoly, oligopoly, product differentiation, pricing, game theory, decision analysis, bargaining, auctions, and asymmetric information.

20 hours of lectures and 8 hours of classes in the MT. 20 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the LT. 1 hour of classes in the ST.

Students on this course will have a reading week in Week 6, in line with departmental policy.

Students are expected to prepare answers to set problems on a weekly basis. Some of this work will be assessed. Assiduous preparation for the weekly tutorials is essential to achieve a good exam performance.

No textbook covers the whole course but Saul Estrin, Daid Laidler and Michael Dietrich, Microeconomics (6th editon) or Hal R Varian, Intermediate Microeconomics (latest edition) are both good reference books for the course. In addition students are advised to refer to T C Bergstrom & H R Varian, Workouts in Intermediate Microeconomics (1990), P Milgrom & J Roberts, Economics, Organisation and Management (1992) and J Tirole, The Theory of Industrial Organisation (1990).

Exam (100%, duration: 3 hours) in the main exam period.