Social and Political Studies AB: Economics

The course starts with a survey of the basic economic questions. How do we economise on scarce resources? How does the interaction between consumers and producers determine price, production and consumption in a market? Then, there is an analysis of price formation in the market forms of monopoly, monopolistic competition and oligopoly. Economic efficiency is defined and different obstacles to efficiency such as pollution and insufficient competition are examined. Furthermore, different economic-political measures in a market economy are discussed. After having discussed the individual markets, the course deals with the economy as a whole, i.e. macroeconomics. This part is mainly devoted to introducing and defining central macroeconomic concepts and relations such as: the national accounts, unemployment and inflation, economic growth, financial markets and purchasing power parity and exchange rates.