Students discover how prices allocate resources, why shortages and surpluses exist, the reasons competition is preferred to monopolies, and why problems arise when there is market failure such as pollution.
Students learn to utilize supply and demand analysis to explain market outcomes.
Students discover how to measure the performance of the whole economic system and how to understand the concepts of real output growth, inflation, unemployment, expansions and recession. The student develops an understanding of the effect of fiscal policy, monetary policy and interest rates on the economic system. The student is introduced to the concept of the national debt, balance of payments, exchange rates, and the status of the U.S. as a debtor nation. Students learn how to use descriptive statistics, probability, statistical inference, hypothesis testing, correlation, and basic regression analysis to describe and analyze business and economic data. Students learn about the theories of international trade and exchange of goods and services and financial assets.