SUS 6025 - Micro and Macroeconomics

(4 units)

This course is a one-semester introduction to the fundamentals of managerial economics, focusing on microeconomics, and to macroeconomics, with a backdrop of ecological economics. It has three primary objectives: provide an understanding of the standard or neoclassical microeconomic model and how this model relates to, and is useful for, business decision-making; provide a critique of this model and present a more heterodox view of economics; and provide an overview of macroeconomics and how this relates to business practice and policy making. The microeconomics portion of the course will cover basic economic relationships, decision analysis at the margin, supply and demand theory, production theory, capital theory, profit maximization and cost minimization, firm structure, and types of markets. The macroeconomics portion will cover national income and debt, inflation, unemployment, money supply, fiscal and monetary policy and the balance of trade. The critical aspect of the class will both consider how the neoclassical model is unrealistic, and therefore of limited value, and how this model is problematic in terms of sustainability. The course will conclude with an overview of ecological economics.
Prerequisites: SUS 6000, SUS 6021