|
A striking feature of the Australian economy is the way in which private businesses and the government operate side-by-side. For example, while some goods, such as CD players and pizzas, are produced by private business and are traded in markets with little government involvement there are many instances in which government regulates the price and/or quality of goods, restricts who can buy them, owns or restricts access to resources, or produces goods itself. We also regularly observe the government’s efforts to redistribute income and to control key macroeconomic aggregates such as unemployment and inflation. We call this particular form of economic organisation mixed capitalism.
The principal aim of this unit is to provide students with a set of analytical tools and concepts to help them understand why this particular form of economic organisation has evolved. While students will be expected to draw upon the basic tools and concepts introduced in BEA110 Economics for Business, this unit develops a number of new microeconomic and macroeconomic themes. The microeconomic component of the unit will focus on the properties of competitive markets and the role of the state in promoting efficient and equitable market outcomes in cases where freely operating markets fail to do so. The extensions to macroeconomic foundations include an analysis of aggregate expenditure topics: determinants of investment, consumption, imports and exports; a different approach to equilibrium in the economy; an extended analysis of inflation and unemployment and macroeconomic policy.
|
