Instructor: Robin D. Hanson, Assoc. Professor, Economics (rhanson@gmu.edu, http://hanson.gmu.edu)
Office Hours: Tu/Th 1:30-3pm, or email me to suggest day/time to meet.

Catalog Entry:

ECON 103: Contemporary Microeconomic Principles. 3 credits.
Introduces microeconomics in the context of current problems. Explores how market mechanism allocates scarce resources among competing uses; uses supply, demand, production, and distribution theory to analyze problems.

Tyler Cowen; Alex Tabarrok, Modern Principles: Microeconomics, Sixth Edition, MacMillan, 2024. ISBN 1319420362

See also the authors' 92 free videos

Learn to reason about society using economists' one best tool: supply and demand.

Quiz Dates: 19Sep,10Oct,14Nov

Grade Weights: Class Participate 5%, 20% per Quiz, 35% Final exam.

Week	Text Chapters	Lecture Topics	Notes
27,29 Aug	1	Intro	No Class Thursday
3,5 Sep	2,3	Supply,Demand
10,12 Sep	4,5	Equilibrium,Elasticity
17,19 Sep	6	Taxes	Quiz Thursday
24,26 Sep	7,8	Prices,Floors
1,3 Oct	9,10	Foreigners,Externality
8,10 Oct	11	Costs	Quiz Thursday
15,17 Oct	12,13	Competition,Monopoly	No Class Thursday
22,24 Oct	14,15	Discrimination,Oligopoly
29,31 Oct	16,18	Networks,Labor	No Class Thursday
5,7 Nov	19,20	Public Goods,Democracy		No Class Tuesday
12,14 Nov			No Class Tue., Quiz Thur.
19,21 Nov	21,22	Ethics,Incentives
26,28 Nov	23,24	Investment,Secrets		No Class Thursday
3,5 Dec			TBD
17 Dec		Final Exam	10:30a-1:15p

This course is part of the Mason Core curriculum and fulfills requirements for Social and Behavioral Sciences. Upon completing this course, students should be able to:

1. Explain how individuals, groups or institutions are influenced by contextual factors.
2. Demonstrate awareness of changes in social and cultural constructs.
3. Use appropriate methods and resources to apply social and behavioral science concepts, terminology, principles and theories in the analysis of significant human issues, past or present.