Fundamentals of Economics

The aim of this course is to introduce the fundamentals of micro and macroeconomic theory through theoretical and practical lectures. The first part of the course is devoted to the analysis of the choices of economic agents and of the main market structures. The second part is devoted to the study of the functioning of the economy as a whole. In particular, this part will deal with the main elements of national accounting and of financial and monetary economics in a closed economy.

By the end of the course students will be able to: (1) autonomously analyse and critically understand microeconomic phenomena, such as consumption and production choices in different institutional settings, as well as macroeconomic ones, such as inflation, unemployment, and growth of GDP in time; (2) understand the maximizing rationale of economic agents; (3) assess the impact of economic policies in the economy.