| Responsible Department | Institute of Food and Resource Economics | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Earliest Possible Year | BSc. 3 year to MSc. 2 year | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Duration | One block | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Credits | 7.5 (ECTS) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Level of Course | Joint BSc and MSc | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Examination | Final Examination written examination Written Exam in Lecturehall No aid allowed Description of Examination: 4-hour written exam Weight: 100 percent 7-point scale, internal examiner Dates of Exam: 28 January 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirement for Attending Exam | Submitted project report | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Organisation of Teaching | Lectures, theoretical exercises, group work, project work. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Block Placement | Block 2 Week Structure: B | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Language of Instruction | English | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Restrictions | None | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Course Content | |||||||||||||||||||||
| The course is intended for the MSc programme in Food Science and Technology. The aim of the course is to give an introduction to the concepts of microeconomic theory, and thereby give a deeper understanding of consumer and producer behaviour in relation to economic decision making. Particularly the theory behind demand for certain goods and possible regulation of this demand is of importance to the course. During the course the aims and arguments for regulation in a broader perspective and in particular in relation to public food policy will be discussed. The course consists of three main parts: 1. The economic part. This is the theoretical part and focus on consumer and producer behaviour. To get a more complete picture of how different markets work, different markets, characterize by i.e. full competition, monopoly, oligopoly are studied. The course starts with an introduction of demand and supply of goods and services and the equilibrium condition in the market. Effects of taxes are studied and how they affect the behaviour of consumers and producers. The distributional effects of the taxes on consumers and producers are also studied. The theory of comparative advantage and gains form trade is discussed, and shows that everybody benefits when each specializes in his area of comparative advantage and then engages in trade. A central theme of the course is the behaviour of consumers and their decision making. The assumptions about the consumers decision making is discussed thorough. According to theory, consumers maximize utility under the constraint of a budget, which depends on individual income, and prices on the goods the consumers want to consume. The total demand for a given good depends consequently on the prices and the consumers' income. When we know how each consumer behaves to different prices and different income levels we can deduce the total demand for a given good, which is often referred to as the demand function. The firms' production decisions are also discussed more thorough during the course and concepts such as the equimarginal principle are introduced. 2. The welfare economic part. In this part the argument for regulation is discussed and some of the mostly used policy instruments are examined. These instruments include: - Change in prices through taxes, which change the behaviour of the consumers and producers. - In basic economics it is often assumed that people possess perfect information, and that all available information is used in the utility maximizing process. This is of course not always the case, which is why information is another strong policy instrument. - Other instruments are direct regulation, public support and public control, which will also be discussed during the course. 3. Case studies. In this part some relevant cases will be examined. The relevance is in connection to food policy, food safety, food security, obesity, optimal nutrition etc. The economic theory behind some given consumer or producer behaviour will be examined and which policy instrument it would be optimal to implement will also be discussed. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Teaching and learning Methods | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional lectures will present central parts of the curriculum. This knowledge will further be elaborated on in theoretical exercises. The students will in groups work with different case studies, which will end up in a project report. The project report is a requirement for the 4-hour written exam. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning Outcome | |||||||||||||||||||||
| The aim of the course is to give an introduction to the concepts of microeconomic theory, and thereby give a deeper understanding of consumer behaviour in relation to economic decision making and of economic policy instruments that can be used to affect the market. After completing the course the students should be able to: Knowledge: Describe the demand and supply of goods. Describe the effects of different policy instruments aimed at affecting the demand and supply of goods. Reflect about the welfare and distributional effects from different policy instruments. Define central concepts within the area of microeconomics and consumer behaviour. Skills: Apply microeconomic theory to analyse elementary economic problems. Communicate and discuss concrete economic problems and solutions with different target groups. Competences: Cooperate with fellow students in analysing and solving different economic problems in a broader perspective and also in relation to public food policy. Independently work with economic problems related to the food market. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Course Coordinator | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Morten Raun Mørkbak, mm@foi.dk, Institute of Food and Resource Economics/Consumption, Health and Ethics Unit, Phone: 353-36872 Leif Jonas Nordström, jno@life.ku.dk, Institute of Food and Resource Economics/Consumption, Health and Ethics Unit, Phone: 353-36861 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Study Board | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Study Committee LSN | |||||||||||||||||||||
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