Economic Institutions

The aim of the course is to provide students with the knowledge of economic principles, methods and basic tools. They are also expected to learn and master basic economic terminology, to understand the economists' view of the world and how markets and price mechanism function and to recognize economic actions and activities in the everyday life. Being an introductory course, Microeconomics and Welfare Economics will be mainly addressed, while Macroeconomics will only be mentioned. To be consistent with the objectives of the degree course "Human Science of Environment, Landscape and Territory", the fundamentals of Environmental Economics and Urban and Regional Economics will also be briefly presented.

During the course, the students will be introduced to the fundamentals of economics, i.e. economic principles, methods, basic tools, and terminology, thus being provided with a new perspective on social sciences. At the end of the course, they will be able to understand and explain the behaviour of households (consumer theory), firms (production theory) and government, and to describe the most important market mechanisms and types, using graphs and very basic maths. Students will also learn to identify welfare issues and market failures, such as, in particular, environmental troubles, thus being able to address real problems and solution proposals in current economic policy.