Course Content and Outcomes Guides (CCOG)

CCOG for EC 201 Winter 2025


Course Number:
EC 201
Course Title:
Principles of Economics: Microeconomics
Credit Hours:
4
Lecture Hours:
40
Lecture/Lab Hours:
0
Lab Hours:
0

Course Description

Introduces the principles of microeconomics. Enhances the ability to recognize and analyze economic problems in the United States. Covers the American microeconomic system, which includes a familiarization with the basis of the price system and resource allocation; the operation of the firm; market concentration; regulation and antitrust policies. Recommended: MTH 95, MTH 98, OR MTH 105. Please note that it is not necessary to complete this class before taking EC 202. Audit available. Prerequisites: WR 115, RD 115 and MTH 20 or equivalent placement test scores.

Addendum to Course Description

Credits from this course qualify for general education purposes at Portland Community College and may be applied toward satisfying Associates Degrees at Portland Community College and/or Oregon transfer degrees.  Textbooks are at the discretion of each course instructor.  Prices for texts and/or other materials may be found at the Portland Community College bookstore. 

Intended Outcomes for the course

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

  1. Discuss basic concepts and theories in microeconomics.
  2. Formulate independent conclusions about economic issues and
    policies.
  3. Explain economic processes utilizing an understanding of the historical evolution of economic systems, institutions, and ideologies.
  4. Make decisions based on rudimentary marginal analysis.
  5. Examine market structures and market power.

Social Inquiry and Analysis

Students completing an associate degree at Portland Community College will be able to apply methods of inquiry and analysis to examine social contexts and the diversity of human thought and experience.

General education philosophy statement

This course examines microeconomic theory, method, and policy. It requires students to reason, both qualitatively and quantitatively, about contemporary economic institutions and processes. These institutions and processes include, inter alia, work, production, and employment; consumption and the life process; property, entrepreneurship, and profit; government spending, regulation, subsidy, and taxation; technological change and the natural environment; market competition and concentration. With this reasoning, and an appreciation of the historical origins of contemporary economic systems, students gain the ability to conceptually organize their experience of economic processes and discern its meaning. Furthermore, the course fosters an understanding of contemporary economic policy and politics with an aim to promote a sense of social responsibility and possibility.

Course Activities and Design

This course may include lecture and discussion formats utilizing faculty expertise, texts, supplementary reading materials, films, speakers, and other classroom aids at the discretion of the instructor.  Regular attendance and completion of assigned reading are essential to the successful completion of this course.  Instructors will teach in accordance with the goals and objectives listed in this Course Content Guide.  The course Content Guides are developed by college-wide subject area faculty and are approved by management.

Outcome Assessment Strategies

Traditional and nontraditional techniques will be used to assess student mastery of the content, competencies, and outcomes. These techniques can asses either products or processes:

Products: multiple choice exams, essays, individual group projects, student demonstrations, research projects, other projects with specified rating criteria, and portfolios.

Processes: interviews, documented observations, web searches, journals, student self-evaluations.

Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)

  • Introductory terms and concepts: opportunity costs, marginal decision making, and the use of the production possibility curve.

  • Demand analysis: identify the factors that determine consumer demand. This will include topics such as elasticities and the utility theory of value.

  • Comparative advantage: how countries specialize in international trade and the use of tariffs and quotas.

  • Production costs: identify types of production costs and illustrate graphically various cost curves.

  • Profit maximization: how firms maximize profits under different types of markets such as perfect competition; monopoly; oligopoly; monopolistic competition; etc.

  • Labor markets:  wage determination and hiring decisions

  • Factor prices: Theories of rent, profit, interest and wages

  • Market failures: public goods and externalities

  • Government intervention: regulation of industry and antitrust policies. The roles and functions of government in regulating market activities and encouraging competition.

Skills and competencies:
 

  • Build a vocabulary of economic terms that will enable the student to find the daily reading of papers and periodicals easier and more meaningful.

  • Develop the ability to summarize an argument, understand economic reports, and to discern between positive and normative statements.

  • Develop the ability to acquire and analyze quantitative data and make mathematical computations using formulas.

  • Develop the ability to use and apply theoretical models.

  • Develop the ability to conduct cost/benefit analyses.

  • Develop the ability to think clearly about social and environmental problems in an orderly and object way.