BUSN9230B Economics for Business

This topic introduces the economic principles that can usefully guide the decision-making processes of consumers, businesses and other organisations including purchasing, pricing, production and investment decisions. lt considers these decision processes in different competitive market environments. The topic also introduces the workings of the overall economy. lt focuses on national output and expenditure, inflation, unemployment and international economic relationships including trade and capital flows and the role of fiscal and monetary policies.

This topic aims to:

• Examine the economic principles that guide the decision making processes of consumers, businesses and other organisations including purchasing, pricing, production and investment decisions
• Identify the workings of the overall economy
• Investigate national output and expenditure, inflation, unemployment and international economic relationships on fiscal and monetary policies

1. Identify the basic economic issue of scarcity, choice and opportunity cost, how markets allocate resources and outputs, and the role of marginal analysis in decision making
2. Identify the role of comparative advantage and the gains from trade, the role of prices in a market system. Evaluate how market structure affects prices and output
3. Analyse economic behaviour of consumers and firms, and explore how they respond to changes in the opportunities and constraints that they face and how they interact in markets
4. Identify strategic considerations when making choices. Predict how other people or organizations behave when they are in strategic settings
5. Identify information problems in economics and acquire the ability to clearly illustrate the analysis of information problems through the application of economic principles such as rationality and efficiency
6. Evaluate the role government plays in a market economy. Identify how economic principles affect individuals’ lives
7. Identify the process of how the nation’s output of goods and services is measured. Analyse the income and expenditure approaches to measuring national output and national income
8. Clearly illustrate the specific roles and functions of Monetary and Fiscal policy in the economy and explain how these are applied to the process of stabilising the economy, specifically with regard to controlling inflation, promoting full employment and facilitating economic growth
9. Identify the impact of globalisation on the domestic economy. Examine the relationship between the changing structure of the domestic Macroeconomy and international trade policy