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1.3: Learning Outcomes

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    The content, assignments, and assessments for this course are aligned to the following learning outcomes. A full list of course learning outcomes can be viewed here: Microeconomics Course Learning Outcomes.

    Module 1: Economic Thinking

    • Explain what economics is and explain why it is important
    • Use mathematics in common economic applications
    • Use graphs in common economic applications

    Module 2: Choice in a World of Scarcity

    • Explain the cost of choices and trade-offs
    • Illustrate society’s trade-offs by using a production possibilities frontier, or curve
    • Explain the assumption of rationality by individuals and firms

    Module 3: Supply and Demand

    • Describe and differentiate between major economic systems
    • Explain the determinants of demand
    • Explain the determinants of supply
    • Explain and graphically illustrate market equilibrium, surplus and shortage

    Module 4: Applications of Supply and Demand

    • Analyze the economic effect of government setting price ceilings and floors
    • Define, calculate, and illustrate consumer, producer, and total surplus
    • Examine ways that supply and demand apply to labor and financial markets

    Module 5: Elasticity

    • Explain the concept of elasticity
    • Explain the price elasticity of demand and price elasticity of supply, and compute both using the midpoint method
    • Explain and calculate other elasticities using common economic variables
    • Explain the relationship between a firm’s price elasticity of demand and total revenue

    Module 6: Utility

    • Describe the concept of utility and explain how consumers spend in order to maximize utility
    • Explain how consumer utility changes when income or prices change
    • Find consumer equilibrium using indifference curves and a budget constraint
    • Describe the behavioral economics approach to understanding decision making

    Module 7: Production and Costs

    • Explain production and the production function
    • Calculate, graph and understand production costs in the short run
    • Examine production choices in the long run

    Module 8: Perfect Competition

    • Describe the characteristics of perfect competition and calculate costs, including fixed, variable, average, marginal, and total costs
    • Analyze a firm’s profit margin
    • Describe how perfectly competitive markets adjust to long run equilibrium

    Module 9: Monopoly

    • Describe characteristics of monopolies
    • Calculate and graph a monopoly’s costs, revenues, profit and losses
    • Analyze strategies used to control monopolies

    Module 10: Monopolistically Competition and Oligopoly

    • Describe the characteristics of a monopolistically competitive industry
    • Calculate and graph a firm’s fixed, variable, average, marginal and total costs in monopolistic competition
    • Describe characteristics of oligopolies

    Module 11: Public Goods

    • Define and give examples of public goods and externalities
    • Define and give examples of positive and negative externalities
    • Analyze the efficacy of government policies to lessen negative externalities
    • Analyze how the government promotes positive externalities

    Module 12: Labor Markets

    • Analyze labor markets and how supply and demand interact to determine the market wage rate
    • Explain how wages are determined when employers or employees hold labor market power
    • Analyze the economic implications of discrimination and immigration policies

    Module 13: Income Distribution

    • Explain poverty and the poverty trap
    • Analyze and measure economic inequality

    Module 14: Globalization and Trade

    • Define and calculate comparative advantage, and understand how countries choose which goods and services to trade internationally
    • Explain how barriers to trade (like tariffs, quotas and non-tariff barriers) affect businesses, consumers and workers in the economy
    • Differentiate between alternative international trade regimes and how they impact global trade

    Module 15: Exchange Rates and International Finance

    • Define currency exchange rates and explain how they influence trade balances
    • Analyze how supply and demand affects foreign currencies and exchange rates
    • Explain how the balance of trade (surplus or deficit) affects the domestic economy

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