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87565 - Principles Of Economics

Academic Year 2019/2020

Docente: Diego Lanzi
Credits: 8
SSD: SECS-P/01
Language: English

Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
Campus: Forli
Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in International Politics and Markets (cod. 9226)

Learning outcomes

The course introduces students who do not have any prior knowledge of economics to the basic principles of the discipline. Topics include the basics of how markets function, of how economic agents behave, and of macroeconomic analysis. These topics will be related to examples from the real world and current economic events. At the end of the course students are expected to have acquired the knowledge necessary for more advanced economics courses, and to understand and critically evaluate economic and public policy debates.

Course contents

Part 1 Introduction to Economics
1 What is economics?
2 Thinking like an economist
Part 2 Supply and Demand: How markets work
3 The market forces of supply and demand
4 Elasticity and its applications
5 Background to demand: Consumer choices
6 Background to supply: Firms in competitive markets
Part 3 Markets, efficiency and welfare
7 Consumers, producers and the efficiency of markets
8 Supply, demand and government policies
Part 4 The economics of the public sector
9 The tax system
Part 5 Inefficient market allocations
10 Public goods, common resources and merit goods
11 Market failure and externalities
12 Information and behavioural economics
Part 6 Firm behaviour and market structures
13 Firms’ production decisions
14 Market structures I: Monopoly
15 Market structures II: Monopolistic competition
16 Market structures III: Oligopoly

Part 8 Inequality
18 Income inequality and poverty

Part 10 The data of macroeconomics
20 Measuring a nation’s well-being
21 Measuring the cost of living
Part 11 The real economy in the long run
22 Production and growth
23 Unemployment
27 The monetary system
28 Money growth and inflation
Part 13 The macroeconomics of open economies
29 Open-economy macroeconomics: Basic concepts
30 A macroeconomic theory of the open economy
Part 14 Short-run economic fluctuations
31 Business cycles
32 Keynesian economics and IS-LM analysis
33 Aggregate demand and aggregate supply

Readings/Bibliography

Teaching methods

Traditional lectures

Assessment methods

Written Exam

Office hours

See the website of Diego Lanzi

SDGs

This teaching activity contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.