The course delves into the core concepts of economics with a focus tailored for the humanities student. It offers a nuanced understanding of how economic theory can be useful for understanding cultural, historical, and societal contexts. Through a blend of lectures and discussions, we'll address questions such as: Where do prices come from and how do they influence people's behavior? How does a market economy work? How is economic growth relevant for understanding the social world around us? This course invites you to explore these questions, providing a foundation in economic principles while maintaining a critical, interdisciplinary perspective. Prior experience in economics is not required – just an open mind and an eagerness to engage with complex, cross-disciplinary issues.

The course delves into the core concepts of economics with a focus tailored for the humanities student. It offers a nuanced understanding of how economic theory can be useful for understanding cultural, historical, and societal contexts. Through a blend of lectures and discussions, we'll address questions such as: Where do prices come from and how do they influence people's behavior? How does a market economy work? How is economic growth relevant for understanding the social world around us? This course invites you to explore these questions, providing a foundation in economic principles while maintaining a critical, interdisciplinary perspective. Prior experience in economics is not required – just an open mind and an eagerness to engage with complex, cross-disciplinary issues.

The course will be taught in the form of e-learning. Each week you will get access to the lecture recorded on the video in Moodle. Besides the lecture, you will find in Moodle the homework assignment in the form of a short test of the material presented in the lecture. It may take a form of summary for the lecture, short test, or the short essay. To save your time, I strongly recommend doing the homework while you are watching the lecture as the homework will be related to the lecture.

Besides the lectures and the homework, you will be supposed to read at least one of the chapters of the book each week (preferably more than one) so that at the end of the semester you finish reading all the required chapters and watching all the videos and have done all the homework. The first video lecture will inform you how to study for the course, which chapters and parts of the chapters you are responsible for and how the final exam will look like. The next videos will cover the material that is required for the exam.

All the presentations are already available in SIS. In the presentations, you will find the links to the relevant video content on the internet. I will not include this content to the lectures on the videos, but highly recommend to watch it.

In the case of necessity, you can use the discussion forum in Moodle to pose your question about the course. I will answer these questions ASAP. If this is not enough, you may ask for skype or google meet consultation via e-mail.

 Requirements to get the credits for the course

Homeworks – 20% of the grade

Final test  - 80% of the grade

 

 

Textbook: Economics: Principles, Problems, and Policies (The McGraw-Hill Series in Economics) , 19th Edition

Campbell R. McConnell (Author), Stanley L. Brue (Author), Sean M. Flynn (Author)

McConnell, Brue, and Flynn’s Economics: Principles, Problems, and Policies is the #1 Principles of Economics textbook in the world. It continues to be innovative while teaching students in a clear, unbiased way. The 19th Edition builds upon the tradition of leadership by sticking to 3 main goals: Help the beginning student master the principles essential for understanding the economizing problem, specific economic issues, and the policy alternatives; help the student understand and apply the economic perspective and reason accurately and objectively about economic matters; and promote a lasting student interest in economics and the economy.

 Stuedents are responsible for chapters

1-7, 9-14, 15-17, 19-20, 26-37

 

1. Key questions and principles of economics

2. Markets and prices: how does it work?

3. What do people want? Theory of demand

4. Firms and production

5. Economic welfare

6. Taxes and price interventions

7. Markets with limited competition

8. Labor market: how does the economy influence what job can you get?

9. When markets fail: externalities

10. Money: how does it work?

11. Inflation, unemployment, business cycle

12. Economic growth

13. Exam