Back to Firm Level Economics: Consumer and Producer Behavior
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Firm Level Economics: Consumer and Producer Behavior

All goods and services are subject to scarcity at some level, which requires that society develop some allocation mechanism to determine who gets what. Over recorded history, these allocation rules were usually command based, meaning that the king or the emperor would decide. In contemporary times, most countries have turned to market-based allocation systems. In markets, prices act as rationing devices, encouraging or discouraging production and encouraging or discouraging consumption to find an equilibrium allocation of resources. To understand this process, businesses construct demand curves to capture consumer behavior and consider supply curves to capture producer behavior. The resulting equilibrium price “rations” the scarce commodity. You will be able to: • Describe consumer behavior as captured by the demand curve and producer behavior as captured by the supply curve • Define equilibrium and explain the impact of taxes and price controls on market equilibrium • Explain elasticity of demand • Describe cost theory and how firms optimize given the constraints of their own costs and an exogenously given price This course is part of Gies College of Business’ suite of online programs, including the iMBA and iMSM. Learn more about admission into these programs and explore how your Coursera work can be leveraged if accepted into a degree program at https://degrees.giesbusiness.illinois.edu/idegrees/.

Status: Price Negotiation
Status: Business Economics
IntermediateCourse17 hours

Featured reviews

RS

5.0Reviewed Aug 22, 2017

Excellent course and very well explained every basic economic concept with real examples.Thanks a lot Professor for allowing me to audit this course, wishing you a great success ahead!!

JA

4.0Reviewed Sep 19, 2020

A background knowledge of microeconomics would most likely help many. The lectures were awesome but acing the quizzes might be difficult for anyone with little foreknowledge in microeconomics.

FP

5.0Reviewed May 12, 2017

In the beginning I thought this was going to be a very basic course, but the way the professor explained the topics really make it interesting a practical, going beyond the classical economic theory.

EO

5.0Reviewed Jul 6, 2020

It was a very interesting course. The instructor taught really well and all his teachings were very easy to understand. I learnt a number of valuable lessons and skills in this course.

PP

5.0Reviewed Jan 13, 2021

Found the content extremely interesting. Mr DeBrock delivered the content in a simple and understandable way. Definitely recommended for any beginners wanting to get into economics.

SN

5.0Reviewed Feb 3, 2019

Absolutely made me understand firm level economics concepts. Good practice and foundation building.Professor is great and engages will with real life examples and connections.

AB

5.0Reviewed Feb 9, 2020

Concepts in this course are presented very thoroughly with real life examples and Larry is a great teacher! Learnt a lot in this course and looking forward to the second portion of the course.

SH

5.0Reviewed Aug 12, 2020

Larry is an excellent teacher--clear, concise, and entertaining. This was a refresher course for me (I majored in Econ at Berkeley 40 yrs ago) and reminded me why I chose to study it!

SM

5.0Reviewed Apr 26, 2020

Had lot of fun learning in this course. Although I had a basic concept of economics but with the help of this course I now have a clear and better understanding on Consumer and producer behavior.

SS

5.0Reviewed May 31, 2020

Though being a student in technical field, i was easy for me to become familiar with the subject, as all basics were point to point explained. Larry sir was amazing xD. "I have got the pen"

KK

5.0Reviewed Jan 20, 2022

Professor Larry DeBrock has a very hands on approach to the concepts of economics. He integrates theoretical content with relevant practical examples , helping to understand the framework easily.

PK

4.0Reviewed Jul 10, 2020

Everything is fine but regarding my economics subject, where i got some lagg while understanding because somewhat the examples are varies from one country to another country.

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