Miami-Dade College
ECO 2023 Principles of Economics (Micro)
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Course Description:
Theory of markets, price mechanism, production, distribution and resource allocation; application of
marginal analysis and equilibrium theory to the price and output decisions of the individual firm in pure
competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly and monopoly; agriculture; labor, rent interest and
profits theory; the economics of change.
3 credits
Pre/Co-requisite: None
Course Competencies:
Competency 1: The student will demonstrate knowledge of supply and demand by:
a. Distinguishing between a money price and relative price.
b. Explaining the main influences on demand.
c. Distinguishing between markets, firms and Industries.
d. Explaining the difference between a change in demand and a change in quantity demanded,
a change in supply and change in quantity supplied.
e. Identifying the determinants of supply and demand.
f. Explaining how prices & quantities bought and sold are determined by demand & supply.
g. Understanding why some prices fall, some rise, and some fluctuate.
Competency 2: The student will demonstrate knowledge of elasticity by:
a. Defining and calculating the price elasticity of demand.
b. Identifying whether demand is elastic, inelastic or unitary using the total revenue approach.
c. Defining and calculating the price of elasticity supply.
d. Identifying whether supply is elastic, inelastic, or unitary.
e. Explaining the factors that influence the price elastic of demand.
Competency 3: The student will demonstrate knowledge of utility by:
a. Defining total utility and marginal utility.
b. Explaining the marginal utility theory of consumer choice.
c. Explaining the Income Effect and Substitution Effect and why it explains the law of demand.
Competency 4: The student will demonstrate knowledge of production costs by:
a. Distinguishing between short run and long run.
b. Explaining the relationship between a firm’s output and costs in the short run.
c. Deriving and explaining a firm’s short-run cost curves.
d. Identifying the difference between economic profits and normal profits.
e. Defining the law of diminishing marginal returns.
f. Computing a production function and graph if given appropriate data.
g. Defining economies and diseconomies of scale.
h. Explaining implicit, opportunity and explicit costs.
i. Computing a cost chart and graph this given appropriate data.
The student will demonstrate knowledge of the pure competition model
by:
a. Defining pure competition.
b. Explaining how pricing and output are determined in a competitive industry.
c. Stating and explaining the characteristics of pure competition.
d. Identifying the equilibrium level of output and prices for a purely competitive firm
and its corresponding profit or loss position from a given table and graph.
e. Constructing a short run supply curve for a competitive market.
f. Explaining the two approaches to maximizing profits and minimizing losses.
g. Explaining how a firm determines whether to produce or shut down in the
short run.
Competency 5:
Competency 6: The student will demonstrate knowledge of monopoly by:
a. Identifying the characteristics of a pure monopoly.
b. Explaining how a pure monopoly determines its output and price.
c. Constructing a demand curve and marginal revenue curve for pure monopoly.
d. Explaining how monopoly regulation influences output, price, economic profit
and efficiency.
e. Comparing and contrasting pure competition and monopoly markets.
The student will demonstrate knowledge of monopolistic competition
and oligopoly by:
a. Identifying the characteristics of a monopolistically competition market structure.
b. Explaining how price and output is determined in a monopolistically competitive
industry.
c. Defining product differentiation and non-price competition.
d. Explaining the impact of mutual interdependence on oligopolistic pricing policies.
e. Identifying the characteristics of an oligopolistic market structure.
f. Explaining the price “stickiness” in an oligopoly industry.
g. Comparing and contrasting the four market structures.
Competency 7:
Competency 8: The student will demonstrate knowledge of the resource markets by:
a. Identifying and deriving at the demand curve for labor and other factors of production.
b. Identifying and deriving the supply curve for labor and factors of production.
c. Evaluating the economic impact of minimum wage laws.
Typed 12-05-00