Business Economics

N. Gregory Mankiw is the Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University. As a student, he studied economics at Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a teacher he has taught macroeconomics, microeconomics, statistics and principles of economics. Professor Mankiw is a prolific writer and a regular participant in academic and policy debates. In addition to his teaching, research and writing, Professor Mankiw has been a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and an advisor to the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston and New York and the Congressional Budget Office. From 2003 to 2005, he served as chairman of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisors and was an advisor to presidential candidate Mitt Romney during the 2012 US presidential election. Mark P. Taylor is the Donald Danforth, Jr Distinguished Professor of Finance at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St Louis, USA. He was previously Dean of the Olin Business School and, before that, Dean and Professor of Finance and Economics at Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick, UK. He obtained his first degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University and his Master’s and Doctoral degrees in economics and finance from London University. Professor Taylor has taught economics and finance at various universities (including Oxford, New York, Bordeaux and Aix-Marseille) and at various levels (including principles courses and advanced undergraduate and postgraduate courses). He has also worked as a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund and at the Bank of England and as a managing director at BlackRock, the world’s largest financial asset manager, where he ran a global investment fund based on macroeconomic analysis. His research has been extensively published in scholarly journals and he is today one of the most highly cited economists in the world. Andrew Ashwin is an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Management in the Lincoln International Business School, at the University of Lincoln in the UK. Andrew teaches and supports students doing undergraduate degrees and MBAs in Leadership and Management across a range of modules and also teaches Commercial and Operational Management to students following master's degrees in the Lincoln Institute for Agricultural Technology. He has an MBA from the University of Hull and a PhD in assessment and the notion of threshold concepts in economics from the University of Leicester. Andrew is an experienced author, writing a number of texts for students at different levels, and journal publications related to his PhD research as well as working on the development of online learning materials at the University of Bristol’s Institute of Learning and Research Technologies. Andrew was Chair of Examiners for a major awarding body for business and economics in England and is a subject specialist consultant in economics for the UK regulator, Ofqual. Andrew has a keen interest in assessment and learning in economics and has received accreditation as a Chartered Assessor with the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors. He has also edited the journal of the Economics, Business and Enterprise Association.

PART I. THE ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
1. What is business economics?
2. Economics and business decision making
3. The business environment
PART II. MICROECONOMICS: THE MARKET SYSTEM
4. Supply and demand: How markets work
5. Elasticity and its applications
6. Taxes and subsidies
PART III. MICROECONOMICS: THE LIMITATIONS OF MARKETS
7. Market failure
8. The consumer and consumer behaviour
PART IV. MICROECONOMICS: THE ECONOMICS OF FIRMS IN MARKETS
9. Costs and revenues in production
10. Business goals and behaviour
11. Business organization
12. Market structures: Perfect competition
13. Market structures: Monopoly
14. Market structures: Imperfect or monopolistic competition
15. Market structures: Oligopoly
16. Corporate strategy and pricing policy
17. Supply chains
PART V. MICROECONOMICS: FACTOR MARKETS
18. Labour markets
19. Financial markets
PART VI. INTRODUCTION TO MACROECONOMICS
20. The macroeconomic environment
21. Aggregate demand and aggregate supply as a model to describe the economy
22. Government economic policy and the effect on business: Fiscal, monetary and supply side policy
PART VII. GLOBAL BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS
23. Business and trade
24. Global influences on business behaviour
25. Business and Europe
26. Sustainability