1. To acquaint the students with the theory of Consumer Behaviour.
2. To examine the theory of production and costs in the short and long run.
3. To understand the working of different markets
· Preferences – consumers’ preferences, assumptions about preferences, indifference curves, examples of preferences, well behaved preferences, MRS
· Utility – cardinal & ordinal approaches, utility function, examples of utility functions, Cobb Douglas preferences, MU and MRS
· Budget constraint – meaning, budget set, properties of budget set, price line, changes in price line; tax, subsidies and rationing
· Choice – meaning, optimal choice, consumer demand: some examples, estimating utility functions, choosing taxes
· Demand – normal and inferior goods, ordinary goods and Giffin goods, PCC and demand curve, ICC and Engel curve, substitutes and complements, inverse demand function
· Technology – concepts of output & input and production function
· Isoquants – meaning and characteristics
· Production with one and more variable inputs
· Returns to scale
· Costs and cost curves in the short run and long run, cost functions
· Perfect competition-equilibrium of the firm and the industry in short-run and long-run
Monopoly- pricing with market power; price discrimination; peak-load pricing, two-part tariff, effect of various taxes, comparison with perfect competition
· Monopolistic competition- Characteristics, product differentiation, equilibrium of firm
· Oligopoly- Quantity leadership, Price leadership, Simultaneous price determination
Simultaneous quantity determination
· Factor price determination under perfect competition and under imperfect competition, monopolistic exploitation
· Monopsony
· Analysis of backward bending supply curve of labour
· Upstream and downstream monopolies
· Hal R. Varian, Intermediate Microeconomics, a Modern Approach, W.W. Norton and Company/Affiliated East-West Press (India), 8th edition, 2014.