This course emphasises logic and conceptual modelling - reinforced by real life examples - to highlight the pivotal link between economics and key business concerns such as costs, prices, markets, organisational architecture and government. Using the tools of economics, students learn to weigh the strategic costs and benefits of each business choice. Building on demand and costs concepts, students will learn how the details of strategic interaction and market structure ( eg oligopoly, monopolistic competition) determine potential industry earnings and a firm's individual profitability. Students will then identify how firms can maintain their profitability through innovation, firm design, maintaining barriers to entry and product differentation, as well as understanding how firms can benefit from globalisation ( eg trade, exchange rates) and government tax and regulatory policies.