This course provides students with a solid foundation of microeconomics to enable them to understand how financial and commercial situations can affect both individuals' and businesses' choices and welfare. The course will introduce students to basic game theoretical tools to analyse markets and firms' behaviour, including bargaining and auctions. The course will also provide students with the first building blocks in general equilibrium (which unifies microeconomics, macroeconomics and finance). The lectures will be augmented by talks from relevant market regulators, whenever possible.

Synchronous:

10 x 2-hour lectures on campus

4 x 1-hour tutorials on campus.

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ILOs

The course aims to:

■ Provide students with a solid foundation in advanced microeconomic theory.

■ Equip students with analytical frameworks for examining markets and economic behaviour.

■ Encourage critical discussion of market structures, efficiency, and normative issues in economics.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

1. Represent strategic environments (with or without uncertainty) using game-theoretic tools and solve for equilibrium outcomes in settings involving strategic interaction.

2. Characterise and analyse market structures using economic models and demonstrate how key market features affect market functioning (with a focus on market power).

3. Evaluate welfare implications in imperfectly competitive markets using formal analytical tools.

4. Analyse decision-making under risk using microeconomic models.

5. Address basic normative issues in general equilibrium frameworks.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.