MPP 6112 - Agriculture & Applied Economics

Cross-Listed As: MPP 4112

Agricultural and applied economics (microeconomics) is the study of the behavior of individual economic units, such as consumers and firms, how they make their decisions and how they interact. Since the “real world” is extremely complex, we need to simplify our views of the economic players if we are to make any headway in understanding them. These simplifications are called “microeconomic models.” In this course we will study how economists form and develop these models. We will look at the simplifications economists make and ask how much “realism” is being set aside by our simplifications, and try to determine what, if any, important insights our models may prevent us from making. It is important to remember that this is a course on economic methodology, not on policy. A lot of what you learn here will be applied later in other courses you will take.

3 Hours Lecture
3 Credits