Course 2024-2025 a.y.

MODULE 1: Microeconomics

·         The consumer: preferences, constraints, choices

·         The demand function

·         Elasticity

·         The firm: technology, input choice and costs

·         The supply function

·         The market equilibrium and policy interventions

·         The market power: monopoly, natural monopoly, oligopoly, monopolistic competition

·         The game theory: non cooperative games, sequential games, repeated games

·         The market imperfections: externalities and asymmetric information

·         Risk and uncertainty

MODULE 2: Macroeconomics

·       Introduction to macroeconomics: topics and methods

·       The macro context and its measurement: national accounting and GDP

·       The labor market, wages, and unemployment

·       The financial markets: money market, interest rate, monetary policy instruments 

·       The short run dynamic and the long run economic growth

·       The macro fluctuations: demand and supply shocks, stabilization policies

·       The trade off between inflation and unemployment: the Phillips curve

·       The global context: saving and investment, the exchange rate, trade policies

·       The Government and the macroeconomy

·       The intertemporal approach

·       The great recession and the pandemic crisis

• Understand and follow more specific and advanced courses in economics and political economy
• Understand how individual agents make their choices of consumption and production
• Explain the functioning of the market
• Identify different market structures
• Discuss how imperfections affect the outcome of the markets
• Distinguish different sources of economic inefficiency.
• Understand how macro aggregates are defined, measured and determined
• Explain the effects of shocks hitting the economy
• Recognize the role of Governments and Central Banks' policies in the business cycle
• Discuss which elements make macro deficits sustainable or unsustainable

• Demonstrate familiarity with fundamental concepts in microeconomics and macroeconomics
• Use the basic micro and macro economics models to describe the economy
• Design regulatory interventions to achieve desirable market outcomes.
• Understand the short and long-run fluctuations of the economy
• Evaluate the effect of policy announcements and interventions on the main macro variables
• Compare the performance of different economies

• Lectures

• Online lectures on the Bboard teaching platform

• The course is structured into online asynchronous classes on different modules. Ex ante self-evaluation tests are available for each module to determine whether the student's knowledge on the topics is sufficient to skip the module. If the ex ante test is not passed, students are warmly encouraged to improve their knowledge using the provided material. A final ex post self-evaluation test can be taken to verify the improvements.

• Students can contact the teacher for clarifications on specific topics and discuss their doubts.

This course is not mandatory and we will not assess student learning. However, self assessment through on line quizzes will be provided.

§  Teaching material will be available on Bboard 

Some suggested possible textbooks are:

MICRO MODULE

§  B. DOUGLAS BERMHEI, D. WHINSTON, Microeconomics, ISBN : 9781307298048

§ H. VARIAN Intermediate Microeconomics with Calculus. International Student Edition. 

MACRO MODULE

§  C.I. JONES, Macroeconomics, W.W. Norton & Company Ltd., 5th international edition.  EAN: 9780393417333

§  O. BLANCHARD, A. AMIGHINI, F. GIAVAZZI, Macroeconomics - A European Perspective, Pearson Education Limited, 2021, 4th Edition.