Course Details
Economics for Managers & Policy Makers
31 Oct 2013
Professional Development
Accounting / Finance
Victoria University Professional and Executive Development
Level 2, Rutherford House, 23 Lambton Quay, Wellington City
Two Days
9:00am 5-00pm
9:00am 5-00pm
$1,395.00
Early Bird Discount available until 28 days prior to the course start date $1,255.50 excl GST
Early Bird Discount available until 28 days prior to the course start date $1,255.50 excl GST
Overview:
Economics provides the fundamental framework for understanding how individuals engage in decision-making and transactions that underpin all economic activity.
This two-day intensive course will introduce you to the microeconomic foundations of information and incentives, the strategic interaction that emerges with decision-making and transacting.
Who Should Attend:
This course is designed for all individuals engaged in decision-making and policy-making in public, private and non-profit sectors.
It assumes no prior knowledge of economics.
Course Objectives:
* Develop an understanding of the key microeconomic principles underpinning the operation of firms and markets. Apply these principles to analyse specific examples taken from the New Zealand and international business and policy-making contexts.
Course Outline:
Organisation of firms and markets; cost and efficiency concepts:
* Welfare is efficiency
* Opportunity cost; cost of capital
* Fixed, sunk and variable costs
* Supply and demand
* Scale and scope economies
* Property rights
* Theory of the firm
Strategic interaction and contractual commitment:
* Economics of strategy
* Anticipating your rival�s response
* Looking forward and reasoning back
* Competition and co-operation
* Role of contracts
Moral hazard and adverse selection:
* Private information
* Bounded rationality
* Principal/agent
* Enforcement of agreements
* Long-term and relational contracts
* Insurance
* Role of tort
Markets: competition and monopoly:
* The competitive firm
* Competition strategy in practice
* Economic impacts of taxation
* Innovation and entry in established markets
* Monopoly pricing and output
* Natural monopoly
* Regulation of monopoly
Course Format:
The teaching will by means of lectures, group discussions and analysis of case studies.
More about the course:
This course begins with the concepts of costs and efficiency and the natural forces that lead to voluntary transactions in the pursuit of higher individual welfare. The role of information, its presence and absence, and the resulting concepts of risk are then introduced. The course then moves to the analysis of individual strategic interaction under different information states (Game Theory), and its influence upon the design of �contracts� for exchange. We then examine how the costs associated with transactions result in patterns of interaction organized along a spectrum from full internal hierarchy (firms) to pure markets. Concepts of supply and demand are introduced, along with standard patterns of competitive interaction (including monopoly) that emerge under specific circumstances. The course then examines the development of different institutions (corporate and other governance structures, regulation, ownership, voluntary agreement, marketplaces) that govern interactions and their effects on the pursuit of individual and social welfare.
The concepts will be illustrated with extensive case studies and examples from contemporary New Zealand as well as international exemplars. These will be derived from public, private and non-profit sectors, and will include an analysis of the similarities and differences in the economic principles used to understand interactions within and between entities in each of these sectors.
Economics provides the fundamental framework for understanding how individuals engage in decision-making and transactions that underpin all economic activity.
This two-day intensive course will introduce you to the microeconomic foundations of information and incentives, the strategic interaction that emerges with decision-making and transacting.
Who Should Attend:
This course is designed for all individuals engaged in decision-making and policy-making in public, private and non-profit sectors.
It assumes no prior knowledge of economics.
Course Objectives:
* Develop an understanding of the key microeconomic principles underpinning the operation of firms and markets. Apply these principles to analyse specific examples taken from the New Zealand and international business and policy-making contexts.
Course Outline:
Organisation of firms and markets; cost and efficiency concepts:
* Welfare is efficiency
* Opportunity cost; cost of capital
* Fixed, sunk and variable costs
* Supply and demand
* Scale and scope economies
* Property rights
* Theory of the firm
Strategic interaction and contractual commitment:
* Economics of strategy
* Anticipating your rival�s response
* Looking forward and reasoning back
* Competition and co-operation
* Role of contracts
Moral hazard and adverse selection:
* Private information
* Bounded rationality
* Principal/agent
* Enforcement of agreements
* Long-term and relational contracts
* Insurance
* Role of tort
Markets: competition and monopoly:
* The competitive firm
* Competition strategy in practice
* Economic impacts of taxation
* Innovation and entry in established markets
* Monopoly pricing and output
* Natural monopoly
* Regulation of monopoly
Course Format:
The teaching will by means of lectures, group discussions and analysis of case studies.
More about the course:
This course begins with the concepts of costs and efficiency and the natural forces that lead to voluntary transactions in the pursuit of higher individual welfare. The role of information, its presence and absence, and the resulting concepts of risk are then introduced. The course then moves to the analysis of individual strategic interaction under different information states (Game Theory), and its influence upon the design of �contracts� for exchange. We then examine how the costs associated with transactions result in patterns of interaction organized along a spectrum from full internal hierarchy (firms) to pure markets. Concepts of supply and demand are introduced, along with standard patterns of competitive interaction (including monopoly) that emerge under specific circumstances. The course then examines the development of different institutions (corporate and other governance structures, regulation, ownership, voluntary agreement, marketplaces) that govern interactions and their effects on the pursuit of individual and social welfare.
The concepts will be illustrated with extensive case studies and examples from contemporary New Zealand as well as international exemplars. These will be derived from public, private and non-profit sectors, and will include an analysis of the similarities and differences in the economic principles used to understand interactions within and between entities in each of these sectors.
Bronwyn Howell, General Manager, New Zealand Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation and Lecturer, Victoria Management School. Teaches Economics, Information Economy and Corporate Management for the Victoria University Master of Business Administration programme, in addition to researching issues of telecommunications policy and regulation