COURSE SYLLABUS

1. General Information
Course name: Microeconomics
Course code: INE 1050 (ECO 252/TR)
Credit: 03
Term:
Location: University of Economics and Business, VNU HN
Instructor: Dr Duc Bao Nguyen
Email: baond@vnu.edu.vn
Phone: +84911637288

2. Course Description
The course is designed to provide students with a basic understanding of microeconomic
concepts and principles and their applications to actual decision-making situations faced by
economic agents. Topics include demand and supply theories, price determination, consumer
and firm behavior, market structures, effects of government intervention and market failures.
The course first introduces the concept of market and then explores how the behavior of
consumers affects the demand and the behavior of producers affects the supply and next how
the level of market competition influence market outcomes. The four basic types of market
structure: perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition and oligopoly will be
analyzed. Finally is the discussion of how government plays its role in coping with market
failures.

3. Course Objectives
On completion of this course, students should be able to:
 Know what economics is about and understand the concept of scarcity,
opportunity cost and choice.
 Define supply and demand and understand their determinants, elasticities and
applications.
 Analyse how markets work and how government policies have their impacts on
market outcome.
 Understand the theory of consumer behavior and reason about purchasing
decisions of consumers.
 Understand and apply the firm’s theory on production and costs.
 Characterize the four basic types of market structure and analyse how firms
operating in different market strutures make decisions.
 Distinguish among the sources of market failure in a market economy, and explain
the role of government in correcting market failure.

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4. Text Book
Required textbook:
- Mankiw, Gregory (2015). Principles of Economics. 7th edition, South-Western
Cengage Learning Mason.
- Varian, Hal (2014). Intermediate Microeconomics. 9th edition. W.W. Norton &
Company.
Reference textbooks:
- McConnel, Brue and Flynn (2009). Microeconomics. 18th edition. McGraw Hill
Company.
- Begg, Vernasca, Fischer and Dornbusch (2011). Economics 10th edition, McGraw
Hill Company.

5. Student Assessment
Attendance and participation 10%, Group assignment 20%, Midterm Exam 20%, Final Exam
50%.
Grading scale
A+: 90-100
A: 85-89
B+: 80-84
B: 70-79
C+: 65-69
C: 55-64
D+: 50-54
D: 40-49
F: <40

6. Lecture Schedule
Week Hours Lecture topics Reading/
(4) Homework
(Required textbook)
Week 1 Lecture Topic 1: Introduction to Economics Chapter 1, 2, 4
Topic 2: Market Analysis Homework 1
Week 2 Lecture Chapter 5, 6, 7
Topic 2: Market Analysis
Homework 2
Week 3 Lecture Topic 3: The Theory of Consumer Chapter 21
Choice Homework 3
Week 4 Lecture Topic 4: The Theory of Firm: Chapter 13
Production and Costs Homework 4
Week 5 Tutorial/
Topic 1- 4
Discussion
Week 6 Midterm Exam Chapter 14
Lecture Topic 5: Perfect Competition Homework 5

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 Week 7 Lecture Chapter 15
Topic 6: Monopoly
Homework 6
Week 8 Lecture Topic 7: Oligopoly and Monopolistic Chapter 16, 17
Competition Homework 7
Week 9 Lecture Topic 8: Market Failures and the Role Chapter 10, 11
of Government Homework 8
Week 10 Group Presentation
Week 11 Tutorial/ Topic 5-8
Discussion Revision
Week 12 Final Exam

Detail topics covered

Topic 1. Introduction to Economics
1.1 The foundation of economics
- Society’s economic wants and economic resources
- Scarcity and choice
- Opportunity costs
1.2 What is economics?
- Three basic economic questions
- Economic system
- Microeconomics and macroeconomics
- Positive economics and normative economics
1.3 Tools of economics
- The model: production possibility frontier
Topic 2: Market Analysis
2.1 What is a market?
2.2 Demand
- Demand schedule and demand curve
- Individual demand and market demand
- The determinants of demand
- Changes in demand and quantity demanded
2.3 Supply
- Supply schedule and supply curve
- Individual supply and market supply
- The determinants of supply
- Changes in supply and quantity supplied
2.4 Supply and demand together
- Market equilibrium
- Market shortage and surplus
- Changes in market equilibrium
2.5 Government controls on prices
- Price ceiling
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 - Price floor
2.6 Elasticity of demand and supply
- The price elasticity of demand
- The cross price elasticity of demand
- The income elasticity of demand
- The price elasticity of supply
Topic 3: The Theory of Consumer Choice
3.1 Consumer’s preferences
- Basic assumptions about preferences
- Indifference curves
3.2 Consumer’s budget constraint
- Budget constraint
- The effects of changes in income and prices
3.3 Consumer’s optimization
- The consumer’s optimal choice
- How changes in income affect the consumer’s choice
- How changes in price affect the consumer choice
3.4 Applications
Topic 4: The Theory of Firm: Production and Costs
4.1 What is a firm?
- The objective of a firm
4.2 The production function
- Fixed and variable inputs
- Short run and long run production function
4.3 The costs of production
- Accounting costs and economic costs
- Costs in the short run
- The various measures of costs
- Costs in the long run
- Economies of scale
Topic 5: Perfect Competition
5.1 What is a market structure?
- Factors that shape the competitive environment
- Four types of market structure
5.2 Market characteristics of perfect competition
5.3 Firm’s decisions in a perfectly competitive market
- Profit maximization output
- The perfectly competitive firm’s short run supply curve
- The perfectly competitive firm’s long run supply curve
5.4 The long run equilibrium in a perfectly competitive market
Topic 6: Monopoly

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6.1The nature of monopoly
- Why monopolies arise?
- Monopoly characteristics
6.2 How a monopoly makes decisions
- Monopoly’s output and pricing decision
- Monopoly profit
- Monopoly power
6.3 The social costs of monopoly
- Monopoly underproduction
- Deadweight loss from monopoly
6.4 Price discrimination
6.5 Public policy toward monopolies
Topic 7: Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly
7.1 Imperfect competition characteristics
7.2 Monopolistic competition
 Market characteristics of monopolistic competition
 Firm’s decision in a monopolistically competitive market
- Short run production and pricing decisions
- Long run equilibrium
 Nonprice competion: advertising
7.3 Oligopoly
 Market characteristics of oligopoly
 Firm’s decisions in an oligopolist market
- The cartel theory
- The kinked demand curve theory
- Game theory
 Public policy toward oligopolies
Topic 8. Market Failures and the Role of Government
8.1 The main causes of market failures
8.2 Public goods and common resources
- Concept
- Problems with public goods and common resources
- The role of government
8.3 Externality
- Concept
- Externalities and market inefficiency
- Public policies toward externalities
8.4 Information asymmetries

7. Class Regulation
Students are expected to:
 Punctually attend all scheduled classes.

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  Be responsible for all instructions and assignments given in class.
 Read the textbook material after the lecture covering that material and do all the
weekly homework assigned.
 Be an active participant while being respectful of everyone else in the class.
 Not use mobile phone in the class.

8. Absency Policy
Regular attendance is mandatory. Students may miss only 20% of classes. Any student
missing more than 20% of classes may be considered to fail the course due to a lack of
attendance.

9. Revisions
This syllabus is subject to change without notice. Students will be informed of any and all
changes as soon as they are available.