Macquarie University

Applied Microeconomics - ECON215

This unit, as the name suggests, is about the application of microeconomic theory. We introduce students to the ways in which individuals, businesses and governments use the analytical tools of microeconomics to decipher contemporary global issues, with a particular focus on new and interesting applications as well as new ways of looking at traditional applications. The aim of the course is not to be mathematically rigorous or theoretically thorough. Instead, your main objective is an appreciation of how fundamental and evolving models can help us understand issues of our contemporary world, or in other words, how to view the world through an economic lens. Tools and concepts (such as supply and demand, choices and incentives, market failure, externalities, games and strategies, and behavioural economics) may be used to analyse issues of environmental damage and economic prosperity, money and happiness, cash versus gifts, art and the artist, market domination by the big brands, social networks, and more. The unit will be interesting to students with economics majors as well as students with non-economics majors; the topics add depth and texture to traditional introductory economics topics.