Category: LPsection

This second Learning Path on production will draw on the basics we saw in Production I and add several extra factors to our analysis. We will basically introduce three new parameters to our possibilities: we will add a time frame and see how this shapes our choices, we will introduce the ability to produce more than one good or service, and we will also take a first look at prices, production costs and competition as a whole market dynamic. Under perfect competition, prices are determined by mar...

In this first LP on production, we will examine the decisions that lead to optimal levels of production. This is crucial, as it mirrors the same decisions that we saw consumers making: assigning our limited (and expensive!) resources in the best way possible in order to maintain optimal levels of production. This will ultimately lead us to the same dual problem: whether to minimise costs assuming an optimal, fixed level of production, or whether to hedge our bets and maximise production whilst f...

This Learning Path is a bit more of a mixed bag than the previous one, finishing off our consumer choice problem, looking at the some useful implications of this in demand theory before moving on to other types of demand theories. We first pick up where we left off in our previous LP and turn the tables on our consumer choice problem in: Consumption duality II: Cost minimisation, the mirror image of utility maximisation, Consumption duality, looking at both problems together before going on to.....

In this Learning Path, the first one about microeconomics, we will look at consumer behaviour from a theoretical perspective, trying to solve the basic problem we all face every day: how to get as much of what we want or need without blowing our budget. Since the main tools needed in order to understand consumer theory are quite a few, we present them in two LPs. The contents of this first half are: The basics: Preferences, which govern what we choose, and then move onto Goods, which we blow our...