Prof Ricardo Alonso

This course is compulsory on the Executive Global MSc in Management. This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes.

This course is compulsory on the Executive Global MSc Management. The information in this course guide pertains to the 2026-2028 cohort.

A graduate-level introduction to the foundations of managerial economics and its application to high-level business decisions. Topics include:

1. Economics as a theory of organisation
2. Demand, supply, and equilibrium: the determinants of consumers' and firms' market responses, the nature of non-strategic interaction
3. Perfectly Competitive Markets: Government Intervention and International Trade
4. Strategic interaction and Game Theory
5. Information and efficiency: adverse selection
6. Pricing with Market Power: Monopoly Pricing
7. Pricing with Market Power: Direct and Indirect Price Discrimination
8. Pricing with Market Power: Dynamic Pricing
9. Pricing with Market Power: Horizontal and Vertical Differentiation

30 hours of teaching during module 1 of the EGMiM programme.

The teaching is highly participative and includes breakout discussions, business case analysis/discussion and group activities.

Problem sets.

Indicative Reading

There is no ideal textbook for this course. The level of the issues that we address is postgraduate, but we avoid the highly technical methods that would characterize an MSc course in economics. Two books for optional background reading are B. Douglas Bernheim and Michael D. Whinston, Microeconomics, McGraw Hill, 2008, and the online book by Tim van Zandt Firms, Prices, and Markets, 2012, which can be found here Firms, Prices, and Markets.

Course participation (15%).

Essay (70%).

Multiple choice quiz (15%).

The course has three different assessments. The main assessment takes the form of a Consulting Project that has two parts: a summative assessment consisting of questions related to the content of the course, and a consulting project where students are asked to apply the main insights and tools of the course to a specific business situation.

The other two assessments aim to engage students with the in-person part of the course. First, there are two multiple choice quizzes that students take in the first week and that cover basic concepts explained in the online video lectures. Second, class participation is assessed as a way to reward students for their participation in the business case analysis and discussion.