About this course: All goods and services are subject to scarcity at some level. Scarcity means that society must develop some allocation mechanism – rules to determine who gets what. Over recorded history, these allocation rules were usually command based – the king or the emperor would decide. In contemporary times, most countries have turned to market based allocation systems. In markets, prices act as rationing devices, encouraging or discouraging production and encouraging or discouraging consumption in such a way as to find an equilibrium allocation of resources. We will construct demand curves to capture consumer behavior and supply curves to capture producer behavior. The resulting equilibrium price “rations” the scarce commodity. Markets are frequent targets of government intervention. This intervention can be direct control of prices or it could be indirect price pressure through the imposition of taxes or subsidies. Both forms of intervention are impacted by elasticity of demand. After this course, you will be able to: • Describe consumer behavior as captured by the demand curve. • Describe producer behavior as captured by the supply curve. • Explain equilibrium in a market. • Explain the impact of taxes and price controls on market equilibrium. • Explain elasticity of demand. • Describe cost theory and how firms optimize given the constraints of their own costs and an exogenously given price. This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.
Taught by: Larry DeBrock, Dean Emeritus and Professor of Finance and Professor of Economics
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign College of Business Department of Business Administration
| Basic Info |
Course 1 of 7 in the
Managerial Economics and Business Analysis Specialization.
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| Commitment | 4 weeks, 3-5 hours/week |
| Language | English |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
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|---|---|---|
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good
It is a very good course which gives a good insight regarding consumer and producer behavior.
Great content, very objective. The teacher was very clear and used relevant examples to make his points.
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PR
I enjoyed studying this course! Thanks Larry! I liked the video lectures and the real-life examples.