Managerial Economics and Business Analysis

This course provides an analytical framework to help you evaluate key problems in a structured fashion and will equip you with tools to better manage the uncertainties that pervade and complicate business processes. To this end, the course aims to cover statistical ideas that apply to managers by discussing two basic themes: first, is recognizing and describing variations present in everything around us, and then modeling and making decisions in the presence of these variations. The fundamental concepts studied in this course will reappear in many other classes and business settings. Our focus will be on interpreting the meaning of the results in a business and managerial setting. While you will be introduced to some of the science of what is being taught, the focus will be on applying the methodologies. This will be accomplished through use of Excel and using data sets from many different disciplines, allowing you to see the use of statistics in very diverse settings. The course will focus not only on explaining these concepts but also understanding the meaning of the results obtained. You will be able to: • Test for beliefs about a population • Compare differences between populations • Use linear regression model for prediction • Use Excel for statistical analysis 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/.

This course discusses how macroeconomic variables affect individuals’ personal, professional, and public activities and lays the foundation for the analysis of the mechanisms that drive macroeconomic variables. It starts by introducing the key macroeconomic variables and explaining how they are defined and measured to interpret macroeconomic data properly.

Then, the course offers a perspective for separating out various parts of the economy driven by different processes and for combining those components to develop a richer view of the whole. In particular, it applies this approach to the analysis of the relationship of the trade deficit with the budget deficit and private savings, offering insights about some key determinants of the balance of payments. The third and fourth modules focus on the analyses of the foreign currency and money markets to provide fundamental models of the interest rate and exchange rate determination. They also discuss how these variables interact with each other and with the macroeconomic conditions, particularly monetary policy, and the expectations about the future trends in the economy.

You will be able to:

• Systematically assess the national and international economic environment in which you live and work
• Analyze macroeconomic issues using key tools
• Be a more effective professional in your line of activity.

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/.

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/.

In markets, prices act as rationing devices, encouraging or discouraging production and consumption to find an equilibrium. In this course, you will learn to construct demand curves to capture consumer behavior and supply curves to capture producer behavior. The resulting equilibrium price “rations” the scarce commodity. Additionally, the course examines the ways in which markets are subject government intervention and the impacts of these interventions. You will be able to: • Explain how different market structures result in different resource allocations • Model the impact of external shocks to a particular market structure and demonstrate the new equilibrium price and quantity after the impact of this external shock has played out • Evaluate the efficiency of an equilibrium • Explain when and why the government might intervene with regulatory authority or antitrust litigation to lessen inefficiencies in some markets • Describe how information problems can cause inefficient outcomes • Understand externalities and consider optimal government response to these market failures 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/.

The capstone project involves an in-depth analysis of an actual business situation in which you will examine the global economic environment of a business. The final project will be a business plan that uses statistical tools and economic theory to create a comprehensive analysis of the microeconomic and macroeconomic environment in which the focal company operates.

This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.

This course examines macroeconomic performance in the short and long run based on the economy’s institutional and policy environment. First, we will develop a model of macroeconomy in the short run when the price level has its own momentum and does not respond much to supply and demand forces. Then, we’ll begin analyzing the long-run equilibrium by examining the foreign exchange market. The third module examines the drivers of aggregate output in the long run and the mechanisms of adjustment from the short run to the long run. Finally, we will discuss the characteristics of desirable macroeconomic policies and the reasons why actual policies deviate from them.

You will be able to:

• Understand how the market for aggregate goods and services interacts with the money market to shape the macroeconomic equilibrium which determines income, interest rate, and exchange rate in the short run
• Assess the dynamic effects of macroeconomic policies and understand the roles of globalization, government policies, institutions, and expectations in macroeconomic outcomes

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/.