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Microeconomics for MBAs : the economic way of thinking for managers / Richard B. McKenzie, Dwight R. Lee.
Bibliographic Record Display
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Title:Microeconomics for MBAs : the economic way of thinking for managers / Richard B. McKenzie, Dwight R. Lee.
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Author/Creator:McKenzie, Richard B., author.
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Other Contributors/Collections:Lee, Dwight R.
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Published/Created:New York : Cambridge University Press, 2017.
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Holdings
Holdings Record Display
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Location:DAVID LAM LIBRARY stacksWhere is this?
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Call Number: HB172 .M396 2017
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Number of Items:1
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Status:Available
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Location:DAVID LAM LIBRARY stacksWhere is this?
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Library of Congress Subjects:Microeconomics.
Managerial economics.
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Edition:Third edition.
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Description:xxxvii, 725 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm
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Summary:"Now in its third edition, this textbook develops the economic way of thinking through problems that MBA students will find relevant to their career goals. Theory and math is kept as simple as possible and illustrated with real-life scenarios. The textbook package includes online video tutorials on key concepts and complex arguments, and topics likely to be assessed in exams. The distinguished author team has developed this textbook over 20 years of teaching microeconomics to MBA students. Chapters are clearly structured to support learning: Part I of each chapter develops key economic principles. Part II draws on those principles to discuss organizational and incentive issues in management and focuses on solving the 'principal-agent' problem to maximize the profitability of the firm - lessons that can be applied to problems MBA students will face in the future. Economics and management are treated equally; this unique textbook presents economics as part of the everyday thinking of business people"-- Provided by publisher.
"Almost all (if not all) textbooks used in business students' first course in microeconomics are designed with undergraduate economics majors or first-year PhD students in mind. Accordingly, business students, especially MBA students, are often treated to a course in intermediate microeconomic theory, full of arcane mathematical explanations. The applications in such standard textbooks deal mainly with the impact of social or government policies on markets, with little discussion of how real-world managers can use microeconomics to make better decisions within their firms in response to market forces or how market forces can be expected to affect firms' institutional and financial structures"-- Provided by publisher.
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Notes:Revised edition of the authors' Microeconomics for MBAs, 2010.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 676-706) and index.
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ISBN:9781107139480 (hardback)
1107139481 (hardback)
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Contents:Machine generated contents note: 1. Microeconomics: a way of thinking about business
Part A Theory and public policy applications
emergence of a market
economic problem
scope of economics
Developing and using economic theories
Microeconomics and macroeconomics
Private property rights, game theory, and the Prisoner's Dilemma
Private property rights and the games economists play
Private property rights and the market
emergence of private property rights
Game theory: Prisoner's Dilemmas
Prisoner's Dilemma solutions: enforcement and trade
Communal property rights and the "tragedy of the commons"
Voluntary organizations and firms as solutions for "tragedies of the commons"
tragedy of the anticommons
Perspective 1 "I, Pencil," by Leonard E. Read
Part B Organizational economics and management
Managing through incentives
Productivity increases
growing importance of incentives
classic Lincoln Electric case study
Incentives and managed earnings
Why incentives are important
Practical lessons for serious business students
Further reading online
Recommended video lectures
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Review questions
2. Principles of rational behavior in society and business
Part A Theory and public policy applications
Rationality: a basis for exploring human behavior
Rational decisions in a constrained environment
Maximizing satisfaction; cost benefit analysis
effects of time and risk on costs and benefits
What rational behavior does not mean
Perspective 2 The evolutionary foundations of cooperation
Part B Organizational economics and management
logic of group behavior in business and elsewhere
common-interest logic of group behavior
economic logic of group behavior
Overcoming Prisoner's Dilemmas through tough bosses
Take this job and...
role of the residual claimant in abating Prisoner's Dilemmas in large groups
Practical lessons for serious business students
Further reading online
Recommended video lectures
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Review questions
3. Competitive product markets and firm decisions
Part A Theory and public policy applications
competitive market process
Supply and demand: a market model
Market equilibrium
efficiency of the competitive market model
Nonprice competition
Competitive labor markets
Perspective 3 Why queues?
Part B Organizational economics and management
Making worker wages profitable in competitive markets
Henry Ford's "overpayment"
Overpayments to prevent misuse of firm resources
underpayment and overpayment of workers
overpayment/underpayment connection
Mandatory retirement
role of employers' "credible commitments"
Practical lessons for serious business students
Further reading online
Recommended video lectures
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Review questions
4. Applications of the economic way of thinking: domestic government and management policies
Part A Theory and public policy applications
Who pays the tax?
Price controls
California drought and the effects of low and controlled water prices on conservation
Fringe benefits, incentives, and profits
Minimum wages
draft versus the all-volunteer military service
Perspective 4 Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and economists' supply and demand curves, contrasting views on human (and economic) choices
Part B Organizational economics and management
How honesty can pay in business
Game theory, again: games of trust
Moral hazards and adverse selection
role of "hostages" in business
Firm logos
Storefronts and fixtures
Firm profitability
Creation of competition
Joint ownership
Guarantees
Practical lessons for serious business students
Further reading online
Recommended video lectures
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Review questions
5. Applications of the economic way of thinking: international economics
Part A International trade theory and public policy applications
Global economics: international trade
Aggregate gains from trade
law of comparative advantage
distributional effects of trade
Gains to exporters
effects of trade restrictions
Special interests' politics and trade restrictions
Protection retaliation and trade wars
Interconnections of comparative advantage
Trade Authority Bill 2015
Perspective 5 "A PETITION From the Manufacturers of Candles, ... and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting," by Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850), Sophismes economiques, 1845
Part B International finance
process of international monetary exchange
exchange of national currencies
Determination of the exchange rate
Exchange rates and changes in domestic market conditions
Monetary and fiscal policies
Practical lessons for serious business students
Further reading online
Recommended video lectures
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Review questions
6. Applications of the economic way of thinking: environmental economics
Part A Green economics: external costs and benefits
Competitive markets and environmental failures
External costs
External benefits
pros and cons of government action
Methods of reducing externalities
Choosing the most efficient remedy for reducing external costs of pollution
Perspective 6 Why walking to work can be more polluting than driving to work
Part B Organizational economics and management
consequences of "quicksilver capital" for business and government
Capital mobility and business competitiveness
Capital mobility and government competitiveness
Collective agreement problems in averting global-warming Armageddon
Practical lessons for serious business students
Further reading online
Recommended video lectures
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Review questions
7. Consumer choice and demand in traditional and network markets
Part A Theory and public policy applications
Predicting consumer demand
Rational consumption: the concept of marginal utility
Changes in price and the law of demand
From individual demand to market demand
Elasticity: consumers' responsiveness to price changes
Applications of the concept of elasticity
Determinants of the price elasticity of demand
Changes in demand
Normal and inferior goods
Substitutes and complementary goods
Acquisition and transactional utility
Objections to demand theory
Perspective 7 Common concerns relating to the law of demand
Part B Organizational economics and management
Pricing strategies and demand characteristics
Scarcity, abundance, and economic value
Software networks
Practical lessons for serious business students
Further reading online
Recommended video lectures
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Review questions
8. Production costs and the theory of the firm
Part A Theory and public policy applications
Various cost conceptions
special significance of marginal cost
cost-benefit trade-off
Price and marginal cost: producing to maximize profits
From individual supply to market supply
Perspective 8 The last-period problem
Part B Organizational economics and management
Production costs and firms' size and organizational structure
Reasons for firms
Changes in organizational costs
Overcoming the large-numbers' Prisoner's Dilemma problems
Make-or-buy decisions
value of reputation, again
franchise decision
Practical lessons for serious business students
Further reading online
Recommended video lectures
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Review questions
9. Production costs in the short run and long run
Part A Theory and public policy applications
Fixed, variable, and total costs in the short run
Marginal and average costs in the short run
Marginal and average costs in the long run
Long-run average and marginal cost curves
Industry differences in average cost
Shifts in the average and marginal cost curves
very long run
Perspective 9 Myth of the first-mover advantage
Part B Organizational economics and management
Firms' debt/equity structures and executive incentives
Debt and equity as alternative investment vehicles
Past failed incentives in the S&L industry
Industry maturity and funds misuse
Firm maturity and indebtedness
bottom-line consequences of firms' financial structures
emergence of the housing bubble and burst of the early 2000s
bailout and stimulus policy debate, for and against
Lessons learned from the housing and economic crisis?
Practical lessons for serious business students
Further reading online
Recommended video lecture
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Review questions
10. Firm production under idealized competitive conditions
Part A Theory and public policy applications
Pricing and production strategies under four market structures
perfect competitor's production decision
Maximizing short-run profits
Minimizing short-run losses
Producing over the long run
Marginal benefit versus marginal cost
efficiency of perfect competition: a critique
Price takers and price searchers
perfection in perfect competition?
Perspective 10 The "innovator's dilemma"
Part B Organizational economics and management
Competing cost-effectively through efficient teams
Team production
Paying teams
Experimental evidence on the effectiveness of team pay
Practical lessons for serious business students
Further reading online
Contents note continued: Recommended video lectures
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Review questions
11. Monopoly power and firm pricing decisions
Part A Theory and public policy applications
origins of monopoly
limits of monopoly power
Equating marginal cost with marginal revenue
comparative inefficiency of monopoly
Monopoly profits
Price discrimination
Applications of monopoly theory
total cost of monopoly
Durable goods monopoly
Monopoly in government and inside firms
Perspective 11 The QWERTY keyboard: a case of "lock-in"?
Part B Organizational economics and management
Profits from creative pricing
Price discrimination in practice
Pricing cartels
Practical lessons for serious business students
Further reading online
Recommended video lectures
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Review questions
Appendix: short-run profits and losses
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Review questions
12. Firm strategy under imperfectly competitive market conditions
Part A Theory and public policy applications
Monopolistic competition
Oligopoly
Cartels: incentives to collude and to cheat
Game theory: cartels and the Nash equilibrium
case of the natural monopoly
economics and politics of business regulation
Perspective 12 Pedophiles and the regulation of hugging, with Kathryn Shelton
Part B Organizational economics and management
"Hostile" takeover as a check on managerial monopolies
Reasons for takeovers
market for corporate control
efficiency of takeovers
Will monopoly profits last into the very long run?
Practical lessons for serious business students
Further reading online
Recommended video lectures
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Review questions
13. Competitive and monopsonistic labor markets
Part A Theory and public policy applications
demand for and supply of labor
Why wage rates differ
Overtime pay, an unmitigated benefit for covered workers?
Monopsonistic labor markets
Employer cartels: monopsony power through collusion
Monopsony and the minimum wage
Perspective 13 Why professors have tenure and businesspeople don't
Part B Organizational economics and management
Paying for performance
When managers can change the rate of piece-rate pay
Two-part pay systems
Why incentive pay equals higher pay
One-time bonuses versus annual raises
Practical lessons for serious business students
Further reading online
Recommended video lectures
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Review questions
14. Challenges of behavioral economists
Part A The overall dimensions of the behavioral challenge
Prospect theory
Dominance and invariance
Mental accounting
Endowment effect
Acquisition and transaction utility
matter of sunk costs
Perspective 14 Neuroeconomics, by Paul J. Zak
Part B Behavioral finance
efficient-market hypothesis, again
Behaviorists' objections to conventional finance theory
Further reading online
bottom line
Review questions
15. Problems with behavioral economics
Part A Concerns with basic principles of behavioral economics
perfect rationality caricature
Reliance on constrained laboratory studies
human brain's internal inclination to correct errant decisions
Ecologically adaptive environments
Subjects' overall rationality
Errant decisions, entrepreneurs, and market pressures
rational emergence of choice options
Perspective 15 NBC's anchor Brian Williams' fall from grace, "false memory," and incentives
Part B "Nudges" and their problems
Proposed nudges
Problems with nudges
From nudges to mandates: the slippery slope
Further reading online
Recommended video lecture
bottom line
Review questions.