BA Modern Language and Business & Management (Chinese)

This module will introduce students to the basics of industrial organization, individual decision making, the role of markets and how they fail as well as issues around the measurement and study of inequality.

Students will develop a build on the Microeconomics learned in Term 1 to more fully be able to study and discuss some of the main ideas and issues in micro.

ECON20232 Prerequisites: ECON10221 and (ECON10061 or ECON10071)

ECON10221 and (ECON10061 Intro Maths or ECON10071 Adv Maths)

This module will introduce students to the basics of industrial organization, individual decision making, the role of markets and how they fail as well as issues around the measurement and study of inequality. 

Students will develop a build on the Microeconomics learned in Term 1 to more fully be able to study and discuss some of the main ideas and issues in micro.

Choice Theory 2

• Revisit classic models of individual agent’s decision making and newer developments allowing for agent’s uncertainty and irrationality.

Understanding Markets 2: Market Failure Due to Market Conditions

• Public goods and the role of the state.
• Funding the provision of public goods with taxes.
• Efficiency loss and gain from taxation.
• The moral limits of markets.

Externalities, Under/Over Provided Goods, Social Costs

• Theory of externalities.
• Applications to (e.g. Environmental and Education policy).

Information Asymmetries

• Moral Hazard.
• Adverse selection.
• Cheap talk and Signalling.
• Applications to Public policy and information provision.

The Distribution of Gains from Markets

• Inequality and redistribution.
• Inequality.
• Measurement.
• Debates and policies.
• Normative issues: Rawls and Nozick.
• Redistribution as a public good.

Political Economy

• Power and Economic Policy.
• Institutions and development.

Synchronous activities (such as Lectures or Review and Q&A sessions, and tutorials), and guided self-study

 

The main text for this module is CORE Economics. Students should register (it is free) at www.core-econ.org/.
 

For every 10 course unit credits we expect students to work for around 100 hours. This time generally includes any contact times (online or face to face, recorded and live), but also independent study, work for coursework, and group work. This amount is only a guidance and individual study time will vary