Formation/Cours

At the end of the course, students should be able to:
– Know and apply the optimum conditions for the consumer and the firm
– Master the mathematical and graphical resolution tools associated with these programs
– Define and calculate different types of elasticity
– Understand the concept of externalities (positive and negative) and its implications
– Know the concepts of public goods and common resources, and their implications.
– Know the characteristics of each market structures (perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, monopoly)
– Analyse the efficiency of each market strcuture and make comparisons between them
– Handle some concepts of game theory

The first part of the course provides an overview of the basics of microeconomics: consumer behavior (rationality, consumer program, optimum, substitution effect and income effect), producer behavior (demand for production factors, cost functions, profit and optimum of the firm), the framework for competitive analysis and the concept of demand/supply elasticities.
The second part tackles the efficiency of markets with the concept of Pareto optimum following up on the imperfections causing inefficient markets (externalities, public goods) and the different market structures (monopolistic competition, oligopoly, monopoly). Some concepts of game theory will also be addressed (prisoner’s dilemma, Nash equilibrium).