ECON1101 - 03 - Princ. of Micro Economics

(SS) Social Science (SA) Social Analysis

Microeconomics focuses on how individual markets work. The emphasis is on how consumers make choices and how privately owned businesses produce goods, set wages and earn profits. It also addresses policies designed to overcome market failure, including antitrust law, taxation, environmental regulation, and the redistribution of income. Tools of analysis include supply and demand, profit maximization in competitive and monopolistic markets, and the tradeoff between incentives and equity in policy design. Microeconomic theory is applied to a variety of markets, such as energy, software, pharmaceuticals, housing and labor markets.