The course aims to provide students with tools for understanding the economic reality. This reality consists of facts that are directly observable and others that are less easy to observe. Economic science serves to explain these facts in order to predict and potentially modify them. Economic facts encompass all those that involve the use of material and immaterial resources. This usage is the result of individual choices or sums of individual choices. Economics is tasked with understanding these choices and their individual and collective implications. To this end, abstract hypotheses and empirical observation are combined, respecting the scientific method. It is assumed that choices respond to a criterion (one of these is the principle of optimization), and it is also assumed that there exists a state of the economic system in which choices are compatible with each other (what economists call equilibrium). However, such a representation must be subjected to empirical verification. A theoretical hypothesis that is contradicted by facts cannot be retained. In that case, another theoretical hypothesis must be sought and subjected to empirical verification until a hypothesis is validated (always pending new falsification: Popper's falsifiability principle). Empirical verification does not always yield reliable results. Errors can be made if a validated data analysis protocol is not followed. The course will not only equip students with a solid knowledge base but also empower them to abandon that knowledge where it proves inadequate in understanding the phenomena under examination.

Frontal/traditional teaching

None

Attendance is recommended

1. Principles of Economics (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 1)

2. The Use of Economic Models (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 2)

3. Optimization (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 3)

4. Demand, Supply, and Equilibrium (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 4)

5. Consumers and Incentives (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 5)

6. Firms and Incentives (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 6)

7. Perfect Competition and the Invisible Hand (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 7)

8. International Trade (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 8)

9. Externalities and Public Goods (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 9)

10. The Role of the State in the Economy (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 10)

11. Factors of Production Markets (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 11)

12. Monopoly (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 12)

13. Game Theory and Strategic Game (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 13)

14. Oligopoly and Monopolistic Competition (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 14)

15. Trade-offs Involving Time and Risk (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 15)

16. The Economics of Information (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 16)

17. Auctions and Bargaining (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 17)

18. Welfare Economics (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 18)

19. The Wealth of Nations: Macroeconomic Aggregates (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 19)

20. Aggregate Income (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 20)

21. Economic Growth (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 21)

22. Why Does Unequal Development Exist? (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 22)

23. Employment and Unemployment (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 23)

24. Credit Markets (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 24)

25. The Monetary System (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 25)

26. Economic Fluctuations in the Short Run (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 26)

27. Countercyclical Macroeconomic Policy (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 27)

28. Macroeconomics and International Trade (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 28)

29. Macroeconomics in an Open Economy (ACEMOGLU ET AL. Chapter 29)

30. From the Income-Expenditure Model to the AS-AD Model (Appendix)

Distinct exams, both written and oral