EC314 (EX16) OL - Managerial Economics

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About This Course

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This course has an assignment that is due by 11:55 pm Central Standard Time on Wednesday night of the first week of class. Failure to complete this assignment will result in your removal from the course for non-participation.

Textbooks

McKenzie, Richard and Dwight Lee. Microeconomics for MBAs , Second Edition. Cambridge University Press. 2010.  ISBN 13: 978-0-521-19147-0 
 
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. Little, Brown & Co. 2011.ISBN-13: 9780316017930.
 
The first book is the textbook for the course. The second book will be the subject of a required book review.

Course Description

Intermediate microeconomics with a focus on applications of economics to decisions made by managers of a firm, including the concepts of demand analysis and forecasting, production and cost analysis, and pricing output decisions.  Prerequisite: EC202 or instructor's permission.

Course Objectives

Upon the completion of this course the student should be able to:
  • Explain in broad terms how managerial economics can help managers to be effective decision-makers.
  • Appreciate how crucial cost-effective incentive systems are to the efficient allocation of scarce resources.
  • Use demand and supply analysis to predict the effects of changing conditions on market equilibrium and to evaluate the market effects of changes in public policy (such as an increase in the minimum wage).
  • Understand the importance of cost-benefit analysis and how the timing and riskiness of different choices affect their present value.
  • Understand the challenges that the “principal-agent” problem raises for managers in large, publicly-owned corporations.
  • Have an understanding of the circumstances in which markets perform well and the conditions that may lead to market failures, and their implications.
  • Analyze the effects (both good and bad) of government attempts to correct for market failures.
  • Apply demand theory, including the concept of elasticity, to managerial decision-making.
  • Appreciate how a firm’s debt/equity structure may influence managerial incentives.
  • Explain how market structure influences firm behavior.
  • Explain the implications of different employee pay systems.
  • Understand the implications of the application of economic theory to voting and the political process.
  • Understand the importance of observing and understanding current events.