ECON 101-01, Microeconomics, Spring 2009

Abstract

Welcome to ECON 101, the microeconomics portion of the introductory economics series at Rhodes. More importantly this is your opportunity to develop an “apparatus of the mind” with far‐reaching applications that span time, culture, religion, and wealth. What intrigues you? What concerns you? Even more, what baffles you? Your answers to these questions will determine the specific relevance of the “economic way of thinking” to your life. Economics can be successfully employed by anyone. Like other social scientists, economists aim to explain human behavior but within a unique framework using special tools. In this course you will start building an economist’s toolkit that will allow you to study homo economicus (economic man), rightly understood. Specific topics of this course include demand for goods and services, production and supply of the same, trade, market failures, and resource allocation.As an introductory class, the objectives of this course are primarily: (1) To instruct students in a basic cognitive background of economic analysis including terminology and methods, particularly the economic way of thinking. (2) To nurture an understanding of economic principles and theories among students that illuminates economics’ interrelation with and applicability to other disciplines and, even, one’s daily life.