Develops facility with concepts, language, and analytical tools of economics. Covers microeconomics, macroeconomics, and international trade and payments. Emphasizes integration of theory, data, and judgment in the analysis of corporate decisions and public policy, and in the assessment of changing US and international business environments. Restricted to Sloan Fellows. The fact of scarcity forces individuals, firms, and societies to choose among alternative uses -- or allocations -- of its limited resources. Accordingly, the first part of this summer course seeks to understand how economists model the choice process of individual consumers and firms, and how markets work to coordinate these choices. It also examines how well markets perform this function using the economist's criterion of market efficiency. Overall, this course focuses on microeconomics, with some topics from macroeconomics and international trade. It emphasizes the integration of theory, data, and judgment in the analysis of corporate decisions and public policy, and in the assessment of changing U.S. and international business environments.

Historically, international trade has played a critical role in enabling countries to grow, develop, and become economically powerful. Through international trade in goods and services, the economies of different countries are more closely linked to one another now than ever before. At the same time, the world economy is more turbulent now than it has been in decades. Keeping up with the shifting international environment has become a central concern in business strategy and national economic policy. This course uses the same fundamental methods of analysis deployed in other branches of economics, as the motives and behavior of individuals and firms remain the same whether they are in the context of international trade or domestic transactions. The student will learn, however, that international trade introduces an entirely new and different set of concerns as well. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: Have a good understanding of the fundamentals of global economics; Have a rounded overview of the modern international trade theory; Understand the current world trading system and the basic rules underlying this system; Study and discuss historic, current, and emerging economic models in the United States and around the world; Understand recent developments in the field of international macroeconomics and perform an independent study in this field; Acquire and demonstrate analytical and problem solving skills to discuss and analyze the global economic environment within which business operate; Acquire an analytical framework to examine contemporary international economic issues; Acquire a general overview of international trade, the foreign exchange markets, and the issues arising from the globalization of markets; Understand the concepts of foreign exchange, its importance to individuals, businesses, and the performance of national economies, and how foreign exchange markets work; Analyze policy issues related to international trade; Understand the legal system governing international economic transactions and international economic relations; Assess actual dispute settlement proceeding and discuss several dispute settlement cases that address a wide variety of issues such as antidumping, subsidy, safeguard, and environment; Answer the four trade questions: 'Why do countries trade?,' 'How does trade affect production and consumption in each country?,' 'Which country gains from trade?,' and 'Within each country, who are the gainers and losers from opening trade?' (Economics 307)

The Principles of Microeconomics course was developed through the Ohio Department of Higher Education OER Innovation Grant. This work was completed and the course was posted in December 2019. The course is part of the Ohio Transfer Assurance Guides and is also named OSS004. For more information about credit transfer between Ohio colleges and universities, please visit: www.ohiohighered.org/transfer.Content ContributorsKen Fah                                             Ohio Dominican UniversityJohn Fiske                                         Ohio Dominican UniversityJoe Nowakowski                                Muskingum UniversityLibrarianNathan Wolfe                                     Kenyon CollegeReview TeamMolly Cooper                                     Ohio State University Subbu Kumarappan                          Ohio State University ATI 

In this topic, students will be introduced to imperfect competition.  They’ll learn about monopolistic competition and oligopoly, about their characteristics are and about how they differ from perfect competition and monopoly.  They’ll also focus on the importance of the key features of monopolistic competition, product differentiation and advertising; and the key features of oligopoly, mutual interdependence, collusion and the game-theoretic approach to strategy.     

In this topic, students will be introduced to monopoly.  They’ll learn what a monopoly is, how it differs from perfect competition and what conditions give rise to it.  They’ll also learn how monopolists decide on the profit-maximizing level of output and price.  The social costs and benefits of monopoly will also be covered.  In addition to monopoly, the topic will cover price discrimination.