PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS - 2 PRACTICE - 2

The objective of this course is to introduce students to economic reasoning. The basic principles of economics will be presented. In particular, after introducing the notion of market equilibrium as the crossing point between demand and supply, consumer choices in various contexts and the optimal strategies of the firms with reference to their cost structures and the characteristics of the markets in which they operate will be analyzed.

It is advisable to have a course in Mathematics

FIRST PART
- Demand, supply and market equilibrium. Elasticity.
- Consumer choice: demand curve and Engel curve, income and substitution effects.
- Firm choice: production function and returns to scale, cost function, average and marginal cost, economies of scale, profit maximization for a price-taker firm.

SECOND PART
- Competitive equilibrium.
- Market intervention: taxes and subsidies, price floors, tariffs and quotas.
- General equilibrium in a pure exchange economy: efficiency and equity.
- Monopoly: equilibrium and deadweight loss. Regulation of monopolies.
- Pricing policies: perfect price discrimination, two-part tariffs, multimarket discrimination, bundling.
- Game theory: dominance and Nash equilibrium, dynamic games.
- Oligopoly: Bertrand and Cournot models with homogeneous goods, Bertrand model with differentiated goods, Stackelberg model, collusion.

D. Bernheim and M. Whinston, Microeconomia, Mc-Graw Hill Italia, 2013.
M.C. Molinari, Esercizi di Economia Politica, Cafoscarina, 2011 (new edition).

On the e-learning platform you can find a detailed syllabus and the exercises done during the practice sessions.

written

Conventional

Italian

Course website:
A-La: http://moodle.unive.it/mod/url/view.php?id=125
Lb-Z: http://moodle.unive.it/course/view.php?id=126

Students are strongly encouraged to actively follow the course, attending classes and solving the exercises assigned every week.

• E-learning, moodle platforms