15.010 is the Sloan School's core subject in microeconomics, with sections for non-Sloan students labeled 15.011. Our objective is to give you a working knowledge of the analytical tools that bear most directly on the economic decisions firms must regularly make. We will emphasize market structure and industrial performance, including the strategic interaction of firms. We will examine the behavior of individual markets -- and the producers and consumers that sell and buy in those markets -- in some detail, focusing on cost analysis, the determinants of market demand, pricing strategy, market power, and the implications of government regulatory policies. We will also examine the implications of economics on other business practices, such as incentive plans, auctions, and transfer pricing.

This half-term course examines the choices that we make which affect others and the choices others make that affect us. Such situations are known as "games" and game-playing, while sounding whimsical, is serious business. Managers frequently play "games" both within the firm and outside it – with competitors, customers, regulators, and even capital markets! The goal of this course is to enhance a student's ability to think strategically in complex, interactive environments. Knowledge of game theory will give students an advantage in such strategic settings. The course is structured around three "themes for acquiring advantage in games": commitment / strategic moves, exploiting hidden information, and limited rationality.

This course develops and applies principles of game theory relevant to managers' strategic decisions. Topics include how to reason about strategies and opponents; strategic commitment, reputation, and "irrational" actions; brinkmanship and negotiation; auctions; and the design of markets and contests. Applications to a variety of business decisions that arise in different industries, both within and outside the firm.

This course is designed to extend the student's knowledge of the basic microeconomic principles that will provide the foundation for their future work in economics and give them insight into how economic models can help us think about important real world phenomena. Topics include supply and demand interaction, utility maximization, profit maximization, elasticity, perfect competition, monopoly power, imperfect competition, and game theory. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: Explain the standard theory in microeconomics at an intermediate level; Explain and use the basic tools of microeconomic theory, and apply them to help address problems in public policy; Analyze the role of markets in allocating scarce resources; Explain both competitive markets, for which basic models of supply and demand are most appropriate, and markets in which agents act strategically, for which game theory is the more appropriate tool; Synthesize the impact of government intervention in the market; Develop quantitative skills in doing economic cost and consumer analysis using calculus; Compare and contrast arguments concerning business and politics, and make good conjectures regarding the possible solutions; Analyze the economic behavior of individuals and firms, and explore how they respond to changes in the opportunities and constraints that they face and how they interact in markets; Apply basic tools that are used in many fields of economics, including household economics, labor economics, production theory, international economics, natural resource economics, public finance, and capital markets. (Economics 201)