 |
| Detailed information |
| Pre-requisites |
(*)keine
|
| Original study plan |
Bachelor's programme Economics and Business 2025W |
| Learning Outcomes |
Competences |
| Students will be able to recognize microeconomic principles in individual and professional decision-making and to analyze policy intervention. Students will be able to assess (future) economic challenges, such as digital, social and environmental transformation.
Course Goals
- Introduce students to basic microeconomic questions
- Enable students to understand market mechanisms and outcomes using mathematical models
- Provide students with the tools to read, understand and analyze graphical representations of economic relationships
- Equip students to critically analyze policy intervention
- Enable students to apply microeconomic principles to evaluate real-world problems
- Introduce students to different areas of microeconomic research, such as competition policy, the economics of health, family, education and labor.
|
|
| Skills |
Knowledge |
- Learning Outcome 3 (LO3): Explain the key ideas of supply and demand and how they interact in markets.
- Learning Outcome 4 (LO4): Solve and interpret microeconomic models using mathematical and statistical techniques.
- Learning Outcome 5 (LO5): Derive predictions about the behavior of consumers and producers using the concepts of utility and profit maximization.
- Learning Outcome 6 (LO6): Evaluate the welfare implications of policy intervention in different areas of economics.
|
- Learning Outcome 1 (LO1): Recall the basic concepts of demand, supply and market equilibrium in microeconomics (see course topics).
- Learning Outcome 2 (LO2): Recall the concepts of welfare economics and the trade-offs between efficiency and distribution.
Course Topics
- Supply and demand (excess and shortage of supply and demand, market equilibrium)
- Elasticities (formal calculation of elasticities, substitutes and complements)
- Preferences and budget constraints (utility function, indifference curves)
- Optimal consumption (utility maximization)
- Demand function and consumer surplus (price changes, substitution and income effects)
- Production function (average and marginal productivity, economies of scale)
- Costs (average, marginal and total costs, short-run and long-run costs)
- Profit maximization (marginal revenue, short and long run optimization)
- Supply function and producer surplus
- Welfare analysis (political intervention, deadweight loss)
- Monopoly (difference from competitive equilibrium, market power)
- Monopolistic competition and oligopoly (Cournot, Stackelberg and Bertrand equilibria)
|
|
| Criteria for evaluation |
Written exam (single choice): Students can reach 16 points:
| Points | Grade |
|---|
| 16, 15 | 1 |
| 14, 13 | 2 |
| 12, 11, 10 | 3 |
| 9, 8 | 4 |
| < 8 | 5 |
|
| Methods |
The course combines several teaching methods in order to
1. inspire and motivate students for the relevance of microeconomic questions.
2. address the learning objectives with appropriate and state-of-the-art didactic methods.
This includes the following
- Teacher-centred information inputs, supported by slides, videos and literature.
- Development of content in collaboration with the students on the blackboard.
- Comprehensive discussion of real-world economic issues.
- Learning control tests
|
| Language |
German |
| Study material |
Moodle content, slides, videos and textbook: Robert S. Pindyck and Daniel L. Rubinfeld. “Microeconomics”, Pearson, Prentice Hall, 9th Edition.
|
| Changing subject? |
No |
|
