Embedded Files
Econ 101 is an introduction to the field of economics, the way that economists think about the world around us and how insights from outside of economics can often be incorporated into economic models. At the end of the course, students should have a thorough understanding of the broad landscape of topics studied by economists, the way that economic theory and empirical evidence shape modern economics, and the general framework that unifies how economists approach their work and their understanding of the world around us. From this, students should gain an appreciation of the many pathways that studying economics opens to them – both while at Duke and beyond. As we will see, economics is much broader than what most initially imagine. Economists study all facets of human choices – those involving money and those that don’t. They also employ empirical tools to analyze data for clues about how people behave and what that implies about the kind of world we all experience. As a result, while we certainly study commonly recognized macroeconomic topics like gross domestic product, unemployment and inflation and microeconomic topics involving firms and consumers, we also investigate issues related to race, inequality, environmental sustainability, education, crime, families and much more. The course is therefore designed to teach economic concepts within the larger context of economics as a discipline.
Economics 201 is an intermediate level economics course that is part of the core economic theory course sequence for economics majors at Duke. It is a rigorous development of the foundational concepts in microeconomics and is broadly accessible to economics and non-economics majors alike. While it emphasizes intuitive and graphical modeling techniques, it also introduces students to some underlying math in preparation for future course work in economics. Our goal here is threefold: First, to continue to develop a way of thinking that underlies all economic analysis – a way of thinking that is independent of math skills and broadly applicable to many facets of life in business, politics as well as personal decision making. Second, we are building a foundation for those of you who choose to go on in economics to enable you to use intermediate-level microeconomic tools in future courses. And third, as part of this building process, we begin to give you a sense of the types of math tools that lie beneath the graphical models typically presented in an intermediate microeconomics course as well as the underlying mathematical optimization approach that you will see use in future courses.
Google Sites
Report abuse