Economics: Competition, Elasticity, A Little Game Theory

Microeconomics is packed with applications to our everyday life - this course will help you connect the dots

What you'll learn
Apply Game Theory to decide whether to be adversarial or co-operative in real-life situations
Determine how best to price products or services that you are selling
Decide the kind of cost structure a firm or enterprise should have, relative to its competitive landscape
Model demand, supply and the effects of income, government regulations and technology
Requirements
This course assumes no prior knowledge of economics, finance or accounting
Description
This is a zoom-in, zoom-out, connect-the-dots tour of Game Theory, Competition and the Elasticity of Demand andSupply.
Let's parse that
'connect the dots': Economics is deep - even the simplest concepts in Micro-Econ 101 are missed by leaders in business and politics, and commit basic errors in judgment. This course makes sure that won't happen to you.'zoom in': Getting the details is very important in economics - you really have to understand the nitty-gritty of graphs and intersecting curves and lines. There is a lot of meaning in those details'zoom out': The real value of economics, particularly microeconomics, is in taking seemingly over-simplified models, and then applying insights from those over-simplified models to the world at large. This course makes sure you can go from the specific to the general.
What's Covered:
Game Theory: Discounting and price wars, Prisoner's dilemma and nuclear arms races, Winner-takes-all games and the commercialization of sport.Competition: Perfect competition, monopoly and monopolistic competitionFirm Costs: The deep meaning underlying total and marginal costs, and the least-cost principleUtility and Consumer Equilibrium: Indifference curves, and relating price and value. Income effects, and deriving Demand curves from indifference curvesApplications of Elasticity: Modeling taxes, the troublesome economics of agriculture, minimum wages. Elasticity, Demand and Supply: Defining and using elasticity. Linear Demand Curves and a neat trick. Demand and Supply demystified.

Overview

Section 1: You, Us & This Course

Lecture 1 You, Us & This Course

Section 2: Demand

Lecture 2 The Law of Demand

Lecture 3 Examples of the Law of Demand

Lecture 4 Veblen Goods

Lecture 5 Giffen Goods

Lecture 6 Income Effects on Demand

Lecture 7 Complements and Substitutes

Section 3: Supply

Lecture 8 The Law of Supply

Lecture 9 Examples of the Law of Supply

Lecture 10 Inflation, Technology and Government

Lecture 11 Market Equilibrium

Section 4: Elasticity

Lecture 12 Elasticity and Price Sensitivity

Lecture 13 Horizontal and Vertical Demand Curves

Lecture 14 Revenue Maximisation

Lecture 15 Elasticity of Veblen and Giffen Goods

Lecture 16 Income and Cross-Elasticities

Lecture 17 Elasticity and Linear Demand Curves

Section 5: Applications of Elasticity

Lecture 18 Taxes

Lecture 19 Agriculture

Lecture 20 Minimum Wages

Lecture 21 Price Controls

Section 6: Utility

Lecture 22 Utility and Diminishing Marginal Utility

Lecture 23 The Paradox of Value

Lecture 24 Indifference Curves and Consumer Equilibrium

Lecture 25 Deriving Demand Curves and Income Effects from Indifference Curves

Lecture 26 Consumer Surplus

Section 7: Firms

Lecture 27 Factors of Production

Lecture 28 Total and Marginal Product

Lecture 29 The Least Cost Principle

Lecture 30 Returns to Scale

Section 8: Costs

Lecture 31 Total and Marginal Costs

Lecture 32 Average and Marginal Costs

Lecture 33 Types of Supply Curves

Section 9: Competition

Lecture 34 Long Run, Short Run

Lecture 35 Perfect Competition

Lecture 36 Profit Maximisation in Perfect Competition

Lecture 37 Monopoly

Lecture 38 Monopolistic Competition

Section 10: Game Theory

Lecture 39 Discounting & Loyalty

Lecture 40 The Rivalry Game

Lecture 41 Trust and Honor in Organized Crime

Lecture 42 Winner-Takes-All Games and Sports in Society

Yep! Business majors and aspiring MBAs,Yep! Finance professionals who are rusty on economics, and its role in how firms compete and operate,Yep! Strategy professionals looking for a theoretical grounding in concepts like game theory and elasticity,Yep! Aspiring entrepreneurs eager to understand how to react to competition