EC2003 Intermediate Microeconomics Syllabus - Aberdeen University

EC2003: Intermediate
Microeconomics 2023
Course Coordinator: Benedikt Mihm
Contact details: [email protected]
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EC2003: Intermediate Microeconomics
2023
EC2003: Intermediate Microeconomics 2023 | 2023/2024
Course Coordinator: Benedikt Mihm
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Contents
I. BASIC COURSE INFORMATION ..............................................................................................2
II. LEARNING AIMS (GOALS) AND OBJECTIVES ..........................................................................2
III. INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES ........................................................................................3
IV. COURSE CONTENT .............................................................................................................. 4
V. ASSESSMENT AND FEEDBACK ................................................................................................5
S U M M A T I V E A S S E S S M E N T ................................ ................................ ........ 5
1ST ATTEMPT ........................................................................................................................5
RESIT: ..................................................................................................................................5
F O R M A T I V E A S S E S S M E N T ................................ ................................ ......... 5
F E E D B A C K ................................ ................................ ............................. 5
E X T E R N A L E X A M I N E R S ................................ ................................ ............ 5
VI. GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES ...................................................................................................... 6
G R A D U A T E E M P L O Y A B I L I T Y ................................ ................................ ..... 6
A C A D E M I C A L L Y E X C E L L E N T ................................ ................................ ..... 6
C R I T I C A L T H I N K E R S A N D E F F E C T I V E C O M M U N I C A T O R S ................................ 6
O P E N T O L E A R N I N G A N D P E R S O N A L D E V E L O P M E N T ................................ .... 6
A C T I V E C I T I Z E N S ................................ ................................ ................... 6
S U B JE C T B E N C H M A R K S ................................ ................................ ............ 6
VII. FURTHER DETAILS .............................................................................................................. 6
C O U R S E T E X T S ................................ ................................ ...................... 6
L E C T U R E P R O G R A M M E ................................ ................................ ............ 7
T U T O R I A L S ................................ ................................ ........................... 8
A T T E N D A N C E R U L E ................................ ................................ ................ 8
I N C O U R S E A S S E S S M E N T S ................................ ................................ ......... 8
T I M E T A B L E ................................ ................................ .......................... 10
I.
Basic Course Information
Credit points: 30
Pre-requisite(s): EC1006: The Economics of Business and Society
Administration of this course is via MyAberdeen. Announcements will be made using MyAberdeen.
If we need to contact you personally, this will be via your university email address (make sure you
check this regularly or set up email forwarding to an email address that you do check regularly) or
to your term-time address (ensure you keep these details up to date via your student portal).
Course Coordinator
Dr Benedikt Mihm ([email protected] ), Edward Wright Building, room S67
Course Lecturers
Dr Benedikt Mihm ([email protected] ), Edward Wright Building, room S67
Dr Agathe Rouaix ([email protected] ), Edward Wright Building, room S62
Course Tutors
Paul Gotz ([email protected] )
Huixuan Gao ([email protected] )
II.
Learning Aims (Goals) and Objectives
1)
To provide the student with a broad overview of the scope and problems dealt with in
microeconomics.
2)
To provide the student with the analytical skills needed to investigate complex problems in
real life.
3)
To provide the student with skills which can be easily adapted in the analytical studies of
individual markets and the economy as a whole.
4)
To provide the student with the analytical skills needed for policy recommendation.
5)
To provide the student with a sound grounding for further study in economics.
EC2003: Intermediate Microeconomics 2023 | 2023/2024
Aims of the course are:
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III.
Intended Learning Outcomes
The designed structure of the course intends to enable the student to acquire and develop the
following skills and knowledge relating to the subject matter of the course specifically; intellectual
skills concerning the student’s abilities in analysing key ideas and concepts introduced during the
course, practical skills in the student’s abilities in participating in the course, and transferable skills
pertaining to the continuing development of skills and abilities that can easily be drawn on in the
contexts of future study and work.
Knowledge and Understanding
The student should acquire knowledge and understanding of:
•
A coherent core of methodological concepts, issues, and their importance in the study of
economic principles – in particular microeconomic but also gain some insight in its macroeconomic
relevance.
•
An understanding of analytical methods: in particular in relation to relevant theory and
model based analysis.
•
An understanding of relevant mathematical techniques needed for the microeconomic
analysis.
EC2003: Intermediate Microeconomics 2023 | 2023/2024
•
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An appreciation of different methods of analysis adopted by economists through an
awareness of the importance of model building and the choice of assumptions.
•
The history and development of economic ideas, methods and practices, drawing results
and analysis from 19th century economics research to current trends of research.
•
The importance of economic data, qualitative and quantitative, in economic discourse.
•
How economists have sought to apply different economic principles to applied problems
and policy issues.
Subject Specific Skills and Concepts
The student should be able to critically appreciate:
•
The importance of abstraction of key features of a complex reality through the use of
models, assumptions based on economic principles.
•
The use of deductive and inductive reasoning in economics.
•
Framing a problem by the identification of the parameters that constrain the solutions to
the problem, and understand how this may depend on changing parameters and assumptions.
•
The role of opportunity cost and thus focusing on the search for solutions taking into
account all resources and possible strategies.
•
The role of incentives of different economic agents, and how the understanding of these
mechanisms may be used to form predictions about agent’s behaviour and formulate policy
recommendations.
•
The critical role of concepts such as; equilibrium, the margin, and individual optimisation,
incentives, and expectations; and their use in decision making strategies.
•
Strategic thinking of agents and how the strategic belief and actions of individual agents
may generate complex interaction between economic agents.
•
The importance of marginal considerations and marginal equilibrium concepts underlie
numerous observable patterns of behaviour.
IV.
Course Content
While the course assumes knowledge in economics up to the standard of EC1006: The Economics
of Business and Society, it will work from first principles and will use these principles to study
interesting and challenging problems in economics. The course gives a broad overview of
microeconomics providing the student with the analytical tools needed to study a wide range of
problems in economic life.
The course is designed to appeal to all students interested in economics. This includes both
students who may not wish to enter into any further studies of economics, but rather pursue
studies other than economics after the completion of this course, as well as students who may
explicitly wish to continue their study in economics at the honours level, and thus in part use
Intermediate Microeconomics as a means to this end.
The course examines a number of key areas in microeconomics including; demand theory,
production and cost, factor markets, market structure and strategical interaction.
EC2003: Intermediate Microeconomics 2023 | 2023/2024
This course builds on and is a natural extension of EC1006: The Economics of Business and
Society. It will further develop the student’s analytical skills investigating in a more rigorous way
concepts introduced in EC1006: The Economics of Business and Society.
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Teaching
1 one hour lecture (Tuesday, 12:00-13:00) and one 2 hour lecture (Friday, 12:00-14:00) per week.
There will also be six 1 hour tutorial (to be arranged).
a) Timetabled teaching hours (e.g. lectures/tutorials) that each student is expected to attend:
36 hours.
b) Time an average student would be expected to devote to private study, including revision:
264 hours.
c) Notional student effort required to complete the course: 300 hours.
You can find your lecture times using MyTimetable. You can sign up for tutorials and other small
group teaching using MyTimetable. The university uses these week numbers.
V.
Assessment and Feedback
Summative Assessment
1st attempt
Two online quizzes (10% each), one assignment (10%) and one written exam (70%)
Resit:
Written exam (100%)
Formative Assessment
EC2003: Intermediate Microeconomics 2023 | 2023/2024
This will take place via tutorial discussions and through on-going verbal feedback.
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Feedback
Feedback will be provided in various ways. First, students will have a chance to ask questions during
the class. Second, solutions to exercises and assignments will be provided. Third, assessments will
be marked and their grades will be released as soon as possible. Fourth, students that do not
understand are welcome to contact the lecturers for further explanations.
External Examiner s
The external examiner for economics undergraduate programmes is Professor Arnab Bhattacharjee
from Heriot-Watt University. Students must not contact the external examiner directly and
external examiners receiving any direct contact from students will report this back to the School.
VI.
Graduate Attributes
Graduate Employability
The course provides intermediate knowledge relevant to further study and careers in a broad
range of areas including business and finance. The course develops core skills in terms of
numeracy, problem solving, presentation skills, economic modelling and technical essay writing.
Academically Excellent
For students on economics and also business and finance programmes, this module provides
necessary intermediate knowledge that will enable more in-depth study of economic behaviour
and policy issues and concepts during programme years 3 and 4. It provides an understanding of
the microeconomic policy environment necessary for a broad business understanding.
Critical Thinkers and Effective Communicators
This module encourages the development of both problem solving and communicational skills
and also independent conceptual and creative thinking via its tutorial exercises, presentations and
assessments.
Open To Learning and Persona l Development
The module can lead students to develop interest in doing further economics modules or, for
those on economics programmes, highlight their initial strengths and weaknesses in relation to
this topic area and the skills needed to pursue these programmes in later years. It helps all
students in continued development of general skills in presentation, writing and numeracy.
In addition to broadening knowledge, the module helps raise awareness about the role of
microeconomic issues in addressing problems and challenges in an economy.
Subject Benchmarks
Subject Benchmark Statement: Economics (qaa.ac.uk)
VII.
Further Details
Course Texts
For Microeconomics the recommended textbook is:
Goolsbee, S. Levitt, C. Syverson: “Microeconomics”, Third edition (Macmillan)
The above textbook is available on a special reduced rate in Blackwell’s situated on the High
Street in Old Aberdeen.
There are many other excellent intermediate microeconomic textbooks. Alternative textbooks
include:
EC2003: Intermediate Microeconomics 2023 | 2023/2024
Active Citizens
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Hal R. Varian: “Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach”, Eighth Edition
(Norton)
W. Nicholson & C. Snyder: “Intermediate Microeconomics and its Application”, Twelfth
Edition (Cengage Learning).
The library is a main source of reading materials for the course. It offers a guide to its services and
you are advised to take full advantage of this service.
Lecture Programme
The lecture programme below is an approximate reflection of the course content. The student
should note that this programme is likely to incur minor changes as the course proceeds. The
student should also note that the reading list may cover more than the content of the course. The
students should finally note that additional material may be given in lectures or provided on
MyAberdeen. The students are responsible in acquiring the relevant information through BOTH
reading and following the lectures.
Week 8 to 11, lectures given by Dr. Benedikt Mihm
•
Budgets and Preferences
•
Utility and Choice
•
Individual Demand
•
Market Demand
EC2003: Intermediate Microeconomics 2023 | 2023/2024
Week 12 to 17, lectures given by Dr. Agathe Rouaix
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•
Production
•
Costs
•
Profit maximization and Supply
•
Perfect competition in a single market
•
Monopoly
•
Imperfect Competition
Tutorials
In addition to the lectures, tutorials are run for your benefit. Tutorials are designed to provide you
with an opportunity to clarify lecture material and facilitate greater understanding of the subject.
It is a requirement of the course for each student to contribute to tutorial discussion.
You will have six tutorials during the semester. Please see MyTimetable to see when the tutorials
take place and register. Tutorials consist of exercises covering the material seen in the previous
weeks. The material for the tutorial will be made available the week before the tutorial so
students have time to prepare the exercises in advance. After the tutorial’s week, all the answers
will be release to the students.
Attendance Rule
All students registered for a course must attend and engage with that course by signing up
for and attending compulsory teaching sessions, and submitting in-course assessments.
Failure to meet these requirements will attract penalty points. If you attract one penalty
point you are liable to be deemed “at risk” (denoted by C6 on your student record). If you
attract two penalty points you are liable to have your class certificate removed (denoted by
C7 on your student record) meaning you will not be eligible to sit the examination and are
effectively removed from the course.
In course assessments - guidelines, submission procedures, deadlines
The in-course assessment consists of two online quizzes (10% each) and one assignment (10%).
Quiz 1 (10% mark)
Questions posting date: 17th October.
Deadline: 18th October (24hours completion period, see note below).
Quiz 2 (10% mark):
posting date: 28th November.
Deadline: 29th November (24hours completion period, see note below).
Dates for Assignment
Assignment (10% mark):
Questions posting date: 8th November
Submission deadline: 15th November (one-week window).
EC2003: Intermediate Microeconomics 2023 | 2023/2024
Dates for Quizzes
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Submission of Assessments
The quizzes will be posted Online, and students will have 45 minutes to complete the quizzes.
So, make sure that you are prepared before you sign in to take the tests. Quizzes are available
within 24 hours window. The coursework is compulsory. Non-submission will yield a mark of
zero for that particular piece of assessment.
EC2003: Intermediate Microeconomics 2023 | 2023/2024
Please note that you must submit an electronic copy of the assignment (Blackboard Ultra’s Safe
Assign submission via MyAberdeen). Once submitted, you cannot request that a different
electronic version be considered. Referencing and Citing guidance can be found in the following
area of the Student Learning Service website www.abdn.ac.uk/sls/plagiarism/.
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Timetable
8 (week
beginning
Mon. Sep. 18)
9 (week
beginning
Mon. Sep. 25 )
10 (week
beginning
Mon. Oct. 2)
11 (week
beginning
Mon. Oct. 9)
12 (week
beginning
Mon. Oct. 16)
13 (week
beginning
Mon. Oct. 23)
14 (week
beginning
Mon. Oct. 30)
15 (week
beginning
Mon. Nov. 6)
16 (week
beginning
Mon. Nov. 13)
17 (week
beginning
Mon. Nov. 20)
18 (week
beginning
Mon. Nov. 27)
Lecturer
BM
BM
BM
BM
AR
Topic
Budgets and
Preferences
Utility and
Choice
Individual
Demand
Market Demand
Production
AR
Cost
AR
AR
Cost-Profit
Maximisation
Perfect
Competition
AR
Monopoly
AR
Imperfect
Competition
Textbook Chapters
Assessment Due
Dates
Tutorial
Goolsbee et al. Ch. 4
Varian Ch. 2 & 3
Goolsbee et al. Ch. 4
Varian Ch. 4 & 5
Goolsbee et al. Ch. 5
Varian Ch. 6 & 8
Tutorial 1
Goolsbee et al. Ch. 5
Varian Ch. 14 & 15
Goolsbee et al. Ch. 6
Varian Ch. 19
Tutorial 2
Quiz 1: 18th Oct
Goolsbee et al. Ch. 7
Varian Ch. 21 & 22
Tutorial 3
Goolsbee et al. Ch. 8
Varian Ch. 20
Goolsbee et al. Ch. 8 &
2&3
Varian Ch. 23 & 24
Goolsbee et al. Ch. 9
Varian Ch. 25
Tutorial 4
Assignment 15th Nov
Goolsbee et al. Ch. 11
Varian Ch. 28
Tutorial 5
Quiz 2: 29th Nov
Tutorial 6
EC2003: Intermediate Microeconomics 2023 | 2023/2024
Week/ Day
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