BAEcon Economics

The unit aims to provide students with a rigorous treatment of fundamental microeconomic concepts exposing the class to key economic ideas and theories motivated and explained with the regular use of real world examples.

Students will acquire a deeper and more rigorous understanding of the concepts encountered in Microeconomics 1 and Microeconomics 2. Specifically, students will be taught: (i) Market Exchange, General Equilibrium and Welfare Economics; (ii) Decision making under Uncertainty; (iii) Role of Information in Economics; (iv) Market Failures, particular focus on externality, public goods, and coordination failure and institutional responses; and (v) a brief introduction to Behavioural and Experimental Economics.

The unit aims to provide students with a rigorous treatment of fundamental microeconomic concepts exposing the class to key economic ideas and theories motivated and explained with the regular use of real world examples.

Students will acquire a deeper and more rigorous understanding of the concepts encountered in Microeconomics 1 and Microeconomics 2. Specifically, students will be taught: (i) General Equilibrium Theory; (ii) Decision making under Uncertainty; (iii) Role of Information in Economics; (iv) Market Failures, particular focus on externality, public goods, and coordination failure and institutional responses; and (v) a brief introduction to Behavioural Economics.

Provisional

Brief overview of the syllabus/topics.

1. Market Exchange, General Equilibrium and Welfare Economics
   • General Equilibrium: feedback between competitive markets
   • Endowment and mutually beneficial trades
   • Competitive Exchange and comparative advantage
   • Welfare Economics; Efficiency and Equity
2. Uncertainty
   • Decision Making under Uncertainty: Expected Utility Theory
   • Risk preferences
   • Investing under Uncertainty: Insurance
      
3. Information
   • Asymmetric Information and Adverse Selection
   • Moral Hazards
   • Contracts
      
4. Market Failure
   • Coordination Failure and Institutional Responses
   • Externality
   • Public Good
      
5. Behavioural and Experimental Economics
   • Social Preferences; public good experiments, director game and auction experiments

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

• Microeconomic theory accompanied by real world applications

• independent study;
• critical thinking;
• group work;
• problem solving

• mathematical skills,
• writing on technical economic concepts,
• presenting economics concepts and their applications in real world,
• use of word processing software

• problem solving;
• analysis and synthesis;
• students will develop presentation and interpersonal skills through participation in tutorial sessions and presenting a given topic related to microeconomics in the form of oral/poster presentation;
• learn to conduct independent research work with a team to help build some useful skills like co-ordination and co-operation.

Coursework (group work, written blog post) (40%)

Final Exam (60%)

• Online quizzes released on Canvas and tutorials
• Feedback: during tutorial classes,  on the Discussion Board, and during office hour

Varian, “Intermediate Microeconomics: a modern approach”, 9^th Edition, 2014, Norton.

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

Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2027 will be £10,050 per annum. Tuition fees for international students will be £33,100 per annum.

For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

We know that student finance can be complicated. The links below provide further information to help guide you.

Learn more about student finance options for UK students.

Learn more about fees and finance for international students.

As an international student you may be eligible for our Global Futures Scholarships. This is open to students starting their studies in September 2026.