The course aims at providing students with a basic knowledge of the main economic variables and the functional relations linking them. Referring to the main theoretical models the course intends to show the role of economic theory as a tool for interpreting economic reality and some fundamental phenomena characterizing the actual economic systems, such as unemployment, crisis, and growth as well as the impact of the different economic policies. The course intends also to provide students with some elements for a critical evaluation of the different theoretical approaches.
The first half of the course centres on the study of the economic choices of consumers and producers. The determinants of the demand and supply functions and their interaction in a perfectly competitive market will be studied. Perfect competition will be compared to other forms of competition: monopoly, imperfect competition, and oligopoly. The course supplies students with the basic analytical tools that allow them to follow the other economics courses. It introduces them to the fundamental economic concepts of efficiency, equilibrium, the rationality of choices, and maximization.
The second half of the course aims at providing students with a basic knowledge of the main macroeconomic aggregates (output, consumption, saving, investment, government spending, supply and demand of money) and the functional relations linking them. Through the main theoretical models (the Keynesian cross-diagram model, the IS-LM model, and the AD -AS model, the course intends to show the role of macroeconomics as a tool for interpreting economic reality and some fundamental phenomena characterizing the actual economic systems, such as unemployment, crisis, and growth as well as the impact of the different economic policies. The course intends also to provide students with some elements for a critical evaluation of the different theoretical approaches.
