Expected Results
By the end of the course, the student will be able to:
- recognize and discuss, both graphically and analytically, instances of alternative economic choices that are relevant for a business and can be addressed in terms of the cost-benefit approach;
- describe how customers demand can react to changes in income, price and prices of other goods and services applying the various forms of elasticity of demand;
- explain, giving original examples, the main categories of costs any company incurs distinguishing the input costs according to whether they can be changed in the short run or only in the long run;
- model and illustrate an output/pricing strategy for a firm in a context characterized by some degree of market power and uncertainty about customers demand;
- develop and support complex choices under uncertainty and strategic interdependence by using the basic notions of game theory;
- apply the basic tools of finance to analyze alternative investment projects, to compare monetary values of different years, the relation between bond prices and interest rates;
- master the basic graphical and analytical tools to interpret, summarize and discuss in the ordinary language the basic content of official documents and papers on countries macroeconomic performances, in terms of output, employment, inflation and cost of living, with an appropriate use of the notions of nominal and real GDP, unemployment rate, GDP growth and GDP deflator, CPI.
- analyze and evaluate, from the viewpoint of an entrepreneur, the macroeconomic data of any country across a given time span assessing, also by use of index numbers, its position in a business cycle and its exposure to global challenges and international competition.
- infer the likely development of the business cycle from the fiscal and monetary policies that the main macroeconomic actors, the Government and the Central Bank, implement to stabilize the economy, e.g. to counteract recessions or inflation.
