Programme

PGPX

Term

I

Academic Year

2021-22

Course title

Firms and Markets

Area

Economics

Credits

0.75

Instructor(s)

Prof. Viswanath Pingali

Course Description & Objectives

Objectives: This microeconomics course aims to introduce basic economic concepts and tools of analysis used in explaining consumers’ and producers’ behaviour. It aims to provide a broad perspective on the business by considering a firm as both a producer and a consumer. In this context, the role of government as a regulator or a facilitator would also be discussed. Several basic concepts like demand, supply, trade-off, opportunity cost, cost of production, types of competition or market structure, market failure, externality, information asymmetry, etc. will be discussed in detail. Specific tools of analysis used widely for understanding, explaining, forecasting or predicting the economic agents’ behaviour will be illustrated with practical applications. The basic purpose of the course is to gain insights and develop intuition on the business aspects by achieving clarity in concepts and methods rather than proficiency in mathematical derivations of results. The course would encourage the economics way of looking at things around.