Economics for Managers

by Farnham, Paul G.

• ISBN13: 9780130924254
• ISBN10: 0130924253
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-01-01
• Publisher: Prentice Hall

Summary

For one semester MBA Managerial Economics courses.To be competitive in today's business environment, managers must understand how both Microeconomic and Macroeconomic forces must be considered when making business decisions. This is the only book that provides business students and MBA's with a thorough and applied understanding for both microeconomics and macroeconomics.

Table of Contents

Managers and economics	p. 2
Multinationals bet on Brazil's recovery; GM, Nokia expect sustained expansion	p. 3
Demand, supply, and equilibrium prices	p. 18
Copper limbo : just how low can it go?	p. 19
Demand elasticities	p. 50
Higher fuel prices do little to alter motorists' habits	p. 51
Techniques for understanding consumer demand and behavior	p. 92
GM's revised vehicle-design system is put to the test with "crossovers"	p. 93
Production and cost analysis in the short run	p. 122
An efficiency drive : fast-food lanes, equipped with timers, get even faster	p. 123
Production and cost analysis in the long run	p. 154
U.S. ports are losing the battle to keep up with overseas trade	p. 155
Market structure : perfect competition	p. 186
Anxious days in potatoland : competitive forces threaten to knock Idaho from top	p. 187
Market structure : monopoly and monopolistic competition	p. 212
As SBC wars with regulators, local phone competition stalls	p. 213
Market structure : oligopoly	p. 244
Upstart's tactics allow it to fly in friendly skies of a big rival	p. 245
Pricing strategies for the firm	p. 272
"What do restaurants really pay for meals?"	p. 273
Measuring macroeconomic activity	p. 302
Manufacturers are showing some faint signs of recovery	p. 303
Spending by individuals, firms, and governments of real goods and services	p. 334
The role of money in the macro economy	p. 380
Fed leaves rates unchanged, offers first hint of future tightening	p. 381
The aggregate model of the macro economy	p. 410
Economic growth slows far more than expected	p. 411
International and balance of payments issues in the macro economy	p. 452
Combining micro and macro analysis for managerial decision making	p. 488
VW factories in Brazil look to export markets	p. 489
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

The goal ofEconomics for Managersis to present the fundamental ideas of microeconomics and macroeconomics and then integrate them from a managerial decision-making perspective in a framework that can be used in a single-semester course. Managers need to understand the insights of both microeconomics and macroeconomics because firms are influenced by forces in each of these areas. The approach in this text will help answer the first question many Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Executive MBA (EMBA) students ask when confronted with a required economics course in their programs: Why should managers study economics? Most of these students are not economists and do not want to become members of that profession. These students have often taken one or two introductory economics courses, which they typically found to be full of abstract models and theories that did not seem to relate to their jobs or their lives.Economics professors may be responsible for some of these impressions because they often fail to recognize that business students are different from themselves. While economics professors may enjoy the logical, deductive approach to model building and hypothesis testing that characterizes their subject, business students typically want to know the relevance and applicability of basic economic concepts and how these concepts can be used to analyze and explain events in the business environment. Unfortunately, economics is often taught from an abstract theoretical perspective, so that current and future managers never learn how the subject can be used for decision making. Surveys at Georgia State University indicate that students are extremely dissatisfied when their MBA economics courses are taught from a traditional theoretical and mathematical perspective, but they respond favorably to courses that include numerous applications and illustrations combined with a basic level of theory.Most micro/managerial economics and intermediate macroeconomics texts are written for economics students who will spend an entire semester using each text. The level of detail and style of writing in these texts is not appropriate for business students or for the time frame of a single-semester course. However, business students need more than a principles of economics treatment of these topics because they have often been exposed to that level of material already.Economics for Managerspresents economic theory that goes beyond principles of economics, but is not as detailed or theoretical as a standard intermediate economics text, given the coverage of both micro- and macroeconomics and the additional applications and examples included in this text. Intended AudienceThis text is designed to teach economics for business decision making to students in MBA and EMBA programs. It includes fundamental microeconomic and macroeconomic topics which can be covered in a single quarter or semester or which can be combined with other readers and case studies for an academic year course. The book is purposely titledEconomics for Managersand notManagerial Economicsto emphasize that this isnotanother applied microeconomics text with heavy emphasis on linear programming, multiple regression analysis, and other quantitative tools. This text is written for business students, most of whom will not take another course in economics, but who will work in firms and industries that are influenced by the economic forces discussed in the text.A course using this text would ideally require principles of microeconomics and macroeconomics as prerequisites. However, the text is structured so that it can be used without these prerequisites. Coverage of the material in this text in one semester does require a substantial degree of motivation and maturity on the part of the students. However, the style of writing and coverage of topics inEconomics for Managerswill facilitate this process