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Course Description

Summary

Price is the terms on which goods are bought and sold in a market. We often calculate prices in terms of the money we pay when we buy goods. But, for economists, prices are the relative value of goods. And, as Oscar Wilde pointed out in 1890: "Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing." Now, how do the relative values of goods get translated into monetary prices in a market economy? How does the structure of a market guide this price determination? What happens when the market structure changes? This introductory course in microeconomics explores these questions. It presents a theory of price determination in economics and demonstrates how the theory can be applied. We will explore the basic ideas in the course verbally and through written expositions, and we will use graphs and mathematical formulations to express the key concepts in formal terms. For this, a grasp of high-school algebra and geometry is required, and some knowledge of calculus may be advantageous. No prior knowledge of economics is necessary to take this course.