Monash University Handbook 2010 Undergraduate - Unit

Synopsis

The unit will cover, in mathematical terms, many of the areas treated more intuitively in first-year microeconomics, eg: consumer demand, the theory of the firm, equilibrium and Pareto optimum. However, a significant portion of the lectures will deal with topics not covered earlier, such as non-linear programming, game theory, and dynamic optimisation.

Objectives

The learning goals associated with this unit are to:

• understand the nature of economic optimisation in the presence of tradeoffs and scarce resources
• understand the optimisation techniques that are employed to generate functions that characterise economic behaviour (demand, supply, and cost functions)
• develop an appreciation for the marginalist perspective of economic decision making
• appreciate the deficits of marginalist considerations and learn non-classical (or inframarginal) techniques that may be used to ameliorate such deficits.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 30%
Examination (3 hours): 70%

Contact hours

3 hours per week

Prerequisites

ECC2000 or equivalent

Prohibitions

ECC3840, ECC3844, ETC4384