Students completing the course should gain the following knowledge and skills:
- The ability to articulate tradeoffs in terms of opportunity cost, for individuals and for organizations.
- An understanding of comparative advantage and the gains from trade.
- The ability to employ marginal analysis in all types of decision making.
- An understanding of how economic agents (consumers, organizations, workers, etc.) behave and respond to incentives, and how those decisions collectively affect aggregate outcomes.
- An understanding of how markets work, and the ability to analyze the impact of economic events on market and organizational outcomes.
- The ability to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of markets as a way to organize economic activity, and when market failures are likely to arise. An understanding of how public policy can improve market outcomes.
- The ability to analyze and compare the efficiency and equity implications of alternative policy interventions.
