Business
EconomicsCornell

Certificate Program

Regardless of your specific area of work, as a manager, it will be imperative for you to understand the incentives that people face and how they are likely to respond when constraints change. A solid foundation of microeconomics will give you a competitive advantage. It will help you answer critical management questions such as: Should we expand our capacity? Should we add more staff? How can you figure those things out?

In this course, you will begin with a cornerstone of microeconomics: opportunity cost. You will examine its definition as well as applications, and explore the hidden cost fallacy, the fixed cost fallacy, and the cost-benefit principle. A good understanding of opportunity cost will help you understand how these principles relate to changes in human behavior and drive decisions. You will examine key concepts of supply and demand and the ways in which they affect business decisions. You will also complete a project in which you apply these concepts to practical questions facing your workplace. You will examine the profit maximizing output rule for producers, define the first law of supply, examine the price elasticity of supply, and define the supply ceteris paribus conditions. You will define the consumer surplus maximizing rule for demanders, the first law of demand, the price elasticity of demand, and the demand ceteris paribus conditions. This course will set the foundation for your microeconomics studies.

While a thorough understanding of supply and demand is essential in microeconomics, you also need to delve into the factors that determine price and how the markets reach levels of equilibrium.

In this course, you will examine what determines equilibrium price and quantity, gains from trade, and how changes in the supply and demand ceteris paribus conditions affect equilibrium price and quantity. You will explore critical questions related to government intervention in markets, and finally, tie these concepts into an overarching graded course project in which you will apply the lessons to relevant concerns facing your industry or organization. This course prepares you to not only understand the relationship between the factors affecting equilibrium price and quantity, but also apply these factors to your decision making for your organization.

You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Examining Scarcity and Opportunity Cost

To effectively lead the decision making of an organization, you will need to understand how we can use models of the labor market, the loan market, and currency market to predict changes in prices and quantities.

In this course, you will familiarize yourself with an extension of the model to the labor market, loan market, and currency market. You will investigate relevant concepts that can allow you to make predictions about how prices and quantities will change when market conditions fluctuate, exploring some circumstances in which the market equilibrium is not efficient. You will then develop a model of production using a single variable input. From this model, you will determine how to derive the average and marginal costs curves. Finally, you will complete a graded course project in three parts in which you will apply these relevant course concepts to practical concerns in your firm or industry. This course will leave you prepared to analyze a imperfect market and apply those concepts to the decisions made at your organization.

You are required to have completed the following courses or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Examining Scarcity and Opportunity Cost
• Analyzing Price and Equilibrium

In this course you will examine the model of perfect competition and how it can be used to make business decisions. You will utilize this model of perfect competition to analyze both the short-run and long-run equilibriums and the impacts they can have on your organization. You will explore how firms have access to a multitude of specialized input that are limited and how those can be exploited for the benefit of your organization. Lastly, you will analyze two significant questions: Who in particular will reap the rewards when there are profits? And how large will the profits be? Finally, you will complete a graded project in which you draw relevant conclusions related to perfect competition and your firm.

These courses are required to be completed prior to starting this course:

• Examining Scarcity and Opportunity Cost
• Analyzing Price and Equilibrium
• Conducting Market Analysis and Predicting Price

Imagine that a firm is the sole producer in a market, i.e., a monopolist. How does the monopolist behave? How does that behavior differ from the case of a firm in perfect competition? In this course, you will examine how the monopolist behaves. You will examine the cost structure that results in a natural monopoly and the choices that firms put into making pricing decisions in these contexts. Finally, you will analyze a model of monopolistic competition between firms and consider how they fight to reduce new firms from entering their industry. Throughout exploring these new definitions and models, you will work on a course project that will help contextualize these concepts into your life and work.

These courses are required to be completed prior to starting this course:

• Examining Scarcity and Opportunity Cost
• Analyzing Price and Equilibrium
• Conducting Market Analysis and Predicting Price
• Modeling Perfect Competition