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Businesses and individuals in modern capitalist societies participate in a variety of markets on daily basis. Whenever we see individuals or organizations voluntarily trading one thing for another – including money, labour, physical products, and the promise of future payment – we have a market. The central concern of Economics as a social science is understanding how such markets operate. How do individual buyers and sellers jointly create markets? How do markets and prices shape the incentives of buyers and sellers to coordinate consumption and production choices? What impact does market exchange have on buyers, sellers, and innocent bystanders? Economics provides a framework for thinking about these questions and the social context in which business operates more generally.

This course introduces you to the economic way of thinking in a non-technical way which assumes no background or aptitude in mathematics. This course uses critical thinking about real-world scenarios to identify economic problems and evaluate possible solutions. We emphasise the practical understanding to be gained by thinking carefully about the incentives facing individuals and how these give rise to broader social outcomes. You will gain an understanding of markets as an emergent social institution, how they coordinate social behaviour, and where they can go wrong.

On completion of this course students should be able to:

1. explain how the market system works and how social, political, and legal factors impact the decision-making environment faced by organisations;
2. use economic concepts and theories to analyse market conditions and support business decision-making;
3. identify and evaluate the market impacts of business and government decisions on key stakeholders such as consumers, competitors, and society;
4. analyse the socio-economic impacts of new and emerging technologies such as automation and digital markets.