Most industrial engineers are involved in managment decisions having organisation-wide effects. Such decisions require an integrated, industry-wide perspective that must be supported by a knowledge of underlying economic structures. Issues concerning competition, marketing, finance, technology management etc. are better understood when we understand how markets do and do not work. This course helps to acquire an economy-theoretic basis to understand such issues.

At the end, the successful student will have developed a capacity for basic quantitave analysis that will provide economic insight to management problems.

Content comprises a survey of neoclassical microeconomic theory at an intermediate level, concentrating on market structures, pricing decisions, regulation and agency. Coverage has ben updated this semester, placing less emphasis on consumption and production in favour of new topics such as property rights, market failures and contracts.