S4
A. Basic Economic Concepts
- Economics as a social science
- Scarcity, choice and opportunity cost
- The three basic problems
- Competition and discrimination
- Production and consumption
B. Firms and Production
- Ownership of firms
- Types/stages of production
- Types of goods and services produced
- Division of labour
- Factors of production
- Production and costs in the short run and long run
- The objectives of firms
C. Market and Price
- Law of demand
- Law of supply
- Market equilibrium
- Interaction between demand, supply and price
- Price elasticity of demand and supply
- Market intervention
D. Competition and Market Structure
- Perfect competition and imperfect competition (monopolistic competition, oligopoly and monopoly)
E. Efficiency, Equity and the Role of Government
- Efficiency
- Equity
- Policy concerns
S5
F. Measurement of Economic Performance
- National income
- General price level as measured by Consumer Price Index and implicit price deflator
- Unemployment and unemployment rates
- Recent trends of national income, general price level and unemployment in Hong Kong
G. National Income Determination and Price Level
- Aggregate demand (AD)
- Aggregate supply (AS)
- The determination of level of output and price
H. Money and Banking
- Money
- Banks: functions and services
- Money creation and contraction
- Money demand, money supply and interest rate determination
- Hong Kong as a financial centre
I. Macroeconomic Problems and Policies
- Inflation and deflation
- Government budget
- Business cycles: a description of the short run fluctuations in real GDP around the long run trend
- Unemployment
- Fiscal policy and Monetary policy
J. International Trade and Finance
- Free trade and trade barriers
- Brief introduction to the balance of payments account
- Exchange rate
S6 Elective
Part 1: Monopoly Pricing, Anti-competitive Behaviours and Competition Policy
- Simple monopoly pricing
- Price discrimination
- Major forms of anti-competitive practices
- The impact of anti-competitive practices
- Justification and concerns for competition policy