Microeconomics

The course aims to provide students with the basics of microeconomics. It aims to provide students with a general understanding of the theory of consumer choice (in the context of utility maximizing), the theory of firms decisions as regards the dual problem of maximizing production and cost minimization. Finally, the course provides students with the knowledge of different market structures. The goal is to supply students with instruments to understand the actual markets where consumers and companies interact. The students, at the end of the course, will be able to define and to investigate the real world.

The students will be able to analyze the real markets where companies and consumers interact, with a special focus on imperfect competition due to the strong interdependence among companies that characterizes the majority of markets in the real world. The students will gain the critical capacity of evaluating information supplied by newspapers, TV and social network, as regards interactions between companies and consumers. The critical capacity obtained at the end of the course will allow students to compare different studies and different analyses: studies with an impartial interpretation of data and analyses where there are potential attempts to manipulate data. Moreover, the students should be able to develop their own analysis in a critical way.