ECON208-15S1 (C) Semester One 2015

Intermediate Microeconomics - Firms and Markets

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 23 February 2015
End Date: Sunday, 28 June 2015
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 8 March 2015
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 24 May 2015

Description

ECON208 is one of two intermediate microeconomics courses which build on the concepts learned in ECON104. The initial topic is analysing the decision making of perfectly competitive businesses. Specifically, how production processes and the price of inputs influence the output decisions of businesses. All other topics look at what happens when perfect competition fails to hold. The focus is on people and businesses acting strategically and what happens when businesses exploit market power.

The focus of ECON208 is firm choices and their resulting market outcomes. The initial topic examines why firms exist and take the forms that they do. Then we study the basic characteristics and output choices any individual business makes. Next we look at industry supply resulting from combining all of the firms who exist in any highly competitive market. Firms require inputs such as employees, materials, and machines to produce their products which is the subject of the following topic. All other topics look at what happens when perfect competition fails to hold. The focus is on businesses acting strategically and what happens when businesses exploit market power. The beginning topic explores what happens when people and businesses act strategically. This leads on to firms having market power and strategically choosing prices, output, and whether or not to enter or exit a market. The last topic on auctions looks at a common way prices and quantities are determined in both competitive markets and markets where businesses have market power.

Prerequisites

Restrictions

ECON202, ECON203

Course Coordinator

Philip Gunby

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
Final Exam 40%
Quizzes 10%
Tutorial Multi-choice quizzes 10%
Mid term Test 40%

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $737.00

International fee $3,125.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Department of Economics and Finance .

All ECON208 Occurrences

  • ECON208-15S1 (C) Semester One 2015