Undergraduate Course: Business Economics (BUST08005)
Course Outline
| School | Business School | 
College | College of Humanities and Social Science | 
 
| Course type | Standard | 
Availability | Available to all students | 
 
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 8 (Year 2 Undergraduate) | 
Credits | 20 | 
 
| Home subject area | Business Studies | 
Other subject area | None | 
   
| Course website | 
None | 
Taught in Gaelic? | No | 
 
| Course description | The place of managerial economics in the making of business decisions; profit and other business objectives; forecasting; the optimal price, place, promotional and product mix; investment appraisal; integration, diversification and location decisions; the impact of the state's regional and other industrial policies on these decisions. | 
 
 
Information for Visiting Students 
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should usually have at least 1 introductory level Business Studies course at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this) for entry to this course.  We will only consider University/College level courses. | 
 
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | Yes | 
 
 
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2014/15  Semester 1, Available to all students (SV1) 
  
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Learn enabled:  Yes | 
Quota:  None | 
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Web Timetable  | 
	
Web Timetable | 
	| Class Delivery Information | 
	1 hour(s) tutorial per week for 8 week(s). Tutorials are held in Weeks 3-10. Please sign up using the Group Selection Tool on Learn. | 
 
 
| Course Start Date | 
15/09/2014 | 
 
| Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) | 
 
 Total Hours:
200
(
 Lecture Hours 20,
 Seminar/Tutorial Hours 8,
 Summative Assessment Hours 2,
 Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
166 )
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| Additional Notes | 
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| Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) | 
 
  Written Exam
65 %,
Coursework
35 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Exam Information | 
 
    | Exam Diet | 
    Paper Name | 
    Hours & Minutes | 
    
	 | 
  
| Main Exam Diet S1 (December) | Business Economics | 2:00 |  |  | Resit Exam Diet (August) |  | 2:00 |  |  
 
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes 
Knowledge and Understanding 
 
After completing the course the student will 
 
- appreciate the implications of differences in objectives between members of an organisation and between members of different organisations for management decision making and understand how to encourage managerial actions to be consistent with the aims of certain stakeholders; 
- be familiar with the application of a wide range economic principles to decisions made by managers to enable them to maximise profits; 
- understand the importance of taking into account rivals' reactions to a manager's decisions when he or she is planning strategies; 
- be familiar with and able to evaluate certain government micro-economic policies, such as competition policies and regulatory policies, which will affect the results of, or impose constraints on, managerial decisions; 
- be able to critically evaluate the effectiveness of different economic principles when applied to managerial decision making 
 
Cognitive Skills 
 
- be able to demonstrate that (s)he can work in a tutorial group to use economic principles to recommend decision to managers 
- be able to demonstrate the application of relevant economic principles to certain  decisions faced by mangers; 
- be able to demonstrate the ability to evaluate certain opposing economics ideas, approaches, methods and theories; 
- be able to demonstrate that (s)he can evaluate certain decisions that managers make in the light of economic principles and models 
 
Key Skills 
 
- be able to demonstrate an ability to use a small number of numerical problem solving techniques to solve certain specific  problems which managers face as taught in lectures and practised in tutorials; 
- be able to demonstrate an ability to assemble literature to synthesise and evaluate economic thinking  or to discover some primary information about organisations so as to apply economic ideas to decisions they make | 
 
 
Assessment Information 
| For 2014-15: Essay of not more than 2000 words in Semester 1. 1 essay = 35%, Degree exam = 65%; resit exam = 100%. |  
 
Special Arrangements 
| None |   
 
Additional Information 
| Academic description | 
Not entered | 
 
| Syllabus | 
Profit Maximisation and Alternative Models of the Firm 
Demand 
Network Economies 
Asymmetric Information 
Cost Theory and Measurement 
Pricing Policy 
Government Policy towards Monopoly, Merger and Restrictive Practices 
Advertising Decisions 
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| Transferable skills | 
Not entered | 
 
| Reading list | 
Recommended to buy: H. Davies & P. L. Lam Managerial Economics, 3rd ed. Prentice Hall, 2001. 
Additional reading: I Png & D Lehman, Managerial Economics, 3rd ed., Blackwell, 2007, would be useful. 
Other suggested reading: 
W D Reekie & J N Crook, Managerial Economics, 4th ed., Prentice Hall, 1994. 
D Besanko, D Dranove, S Schaefer and M Shanley, Economics of Strategy, John Wiley and Sons, 6th ed., 2013. 
T. Jones Business Economics and Managerial Decision Making, John Wiley & Sons, 2004. 
J Buckley, C Smith & J Zimmerman, Managerial Economics and Organizational Architecture, McGraw-Hill, 5th International Edition, 2009 
P G Keat & P Young Managerial Economics, Pearson, 2009. 
M Moschandreas, Business Economics, Business Press, 2000.  
G.A. Petrochilos Managerial Economics, Palgrave, 2004 
M R Baye Managerial Economics and Business Strategy, McGraw Hill, 6th ed., 2009. 
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| Study Abroad | 
Not entered | 
 
| Study Pattern | 
Not entered | 
 
| Keywords | Business Economics | 
 
 
Contacts 
| Course organiser | Dr Aristotelis Boukouras 
Tel: (0131 6)51 1375 
Email: Aris.Boukouras@ed.ac.uk | 
Course secretary | Ms Patricia Ward-Scaltsas 
Tel: (0131 6)50 3823 
Email: Patricia.Ward-Scaltsas@ed.ac.uk | 
   
 
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© Copyright 2014 The University of Edinburgh -  29 August 2014 3:32 am 
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