Overview

This unit aims to provide students with an understanding of some of the main economic tools used in making sound managerial decisions in an increasingly complex and competitive business environment. It also aims to assist students to apply those tools to a variety of economic issues faced by business, non-profit organisations and government. Among the topics covered are market structures and their impact on industry performance, the pricing strategies of firms, the use of game theory in interpreting firm behaviour, capital budgeting and information imperfections in markets.

Requisites

Prerequisites
ECO10004 Economic Principles
Teaching periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date

Learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

  • Apply an economic decision making framework to a wide range of managerial economic problems
  • Use the concepts of elasticity and marginal revenue to establish optimal prices for goods and services
  • Identify the costs that are relevant to decision making and distinguish between cost reductions due to scale, scope and learning effects
  • Understand how firms can best organise themselves to deal with the constraints posed by asymmetric information
  • Apply the basic concepts of game theory and the new economy to oligopolistic decision making

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
On-campus
Class		2.00 12 weeks 24
Online
Lecture		1.00 12 weeks 12
Unspecified Activities
Independent Learning		9.50 12 weeks 114
TOTAL150

OUA

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
Online
Directed Online Learning and Independent Learning		12.50 12 weeks 150
TOTAL150

Assessment

Type Task Weighting ULO's
AssessmentIndividual 30 - 50% 1,2,3,4,5 
Mid-Semester TestIndividual 10 - 20% 1,2,3,4,5 
ReportIndividual 40 - 50% 1,2,3,4,5 

Content

  • Introduction to Managerial Decision Making
  • Economics and Managerial Decision Making: The Firm and its Goals
  • Demand, Supply and Demand Estimation
  • Demand and Supply
  • Demand Elasticity
  • Demand Estimation and Regression
  • Cost Analysis in Contemporary Firms
  • Cost Analysis
  • Pricing, Output Decisions and Game Theory
  • Perfect Competition and Monopoly
  • Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly
  • Pricing Practices
  • Game Theory
  • Risk Analysis
  • Asymmetric Information and its Significance
  • Business Relations and the Global Market
  • The Multinational Corporation and Globalization

Study resources

Reading materials

A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.