Monash University Handbook 2011 Postgraduate - Unit

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Synopsis

The behaviour of the economy is the result of a host of decisions made each day by millions of people. Prices and markets play a crucial role in economic behaviour, creating a system in which actions of individuals, guided by self-interest and without any central co-ordination or planning, create wealth for society as a whole. How individual workers, households and firms make decisions, and how they interact with each other, is the subject of microeconomics.

Objectives

The learning goals associated with this unit are to:

1. understand how markets work, and how prices work to allocate resources
2. understand the basic principles of how people make economic decisions, how they interact economically, and how the economy as a whole works
3. understand the role of public policy, and the constraints on its operation, when markets fail
4. understand how firms are organized and make decisions
5. have developed learning skills and begun to acquire the techniques of thinking like an economist
6. have sufficient grounding to attempt advanced studies in microeconomics in subsequent years.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 30%
Examination (2 hours): 70%

Chief examiner(s)

Jingfeng Lu (Semester 1)
Elias Khalil (Semester 2)

Contact hours

3 hours per week

Prohibitions

ECC2000, ETC2000