Economics & Law - NIT Northern Institute of Technology / TUHH, Hamburg · part of my Technology Management MBA · study notes for revision.
This module teaches the economic way of thinking - and then points it at real business and policy questions. It doesn’t assume any prior economics. It starts from why people trade at all and builds up, tool by tool, to questions like why do markets sometimes fail?, when should a government step in (and when will that backfire)?, and what makes one country a good place to invest and another a bad one?
The course has two halves:
These are study notes for revision, folding in my own handwritten notes on trade, behavioural economics, adverse selection and political economy. Every concept is explained plainly, with the worked examples that made it click.
1 · Thinking Like an Economist
The economic way of thinking - scarcity, rational choice and the “homo economicus”, and how law and economics connects the two (positive vs normative, and the three questions economists ask of any legal rule). Plus partial vs general equilibrium.
2 · Demand, Supply & Equilibrium
How a market sets price and quantity: willingness to pay, the demand curve and elasticity, total and marginal revenue; costs and the production-possibility frontier; the supply curve, market equilibrium, and market power (monopoly vs perfect competition).
3 · Efficiency & Welfare
Measuring what a market is “worth”: consumer and producer surplus, the two ideas of efficiency (Pareto and Kaldor-Hicks), and the tension between efficiency and justice (Rawls and the veil of ignorance).
4 · Game Theory
What happens when my best move depends on yours - strategic interaction, the prisoner’s dilemma, dominant strategies (strict and weak) and Nash equilibrium, and why rational individuals often fail to cooperate.
5 · Functioning Markets
The deeper conditions for trade to work: consumer preferences and indifference curves, budget lines, and the Edgeworth box - how two people gain from trade in a pure-exchange economy, and where the mutually beneficial deals lie.
6 · Market Failure, Information & Behaviour
When the invisible hand slips: market power, externalities, public goods and asymmetric information (adverse selection and the “market for lemons”, moral hazard) - the government’s toolkit to fix them, and a behavioural-economics reality check on the rational-choice assumption.
7 · International Trade
Why countries trade and who gains: comparative advantage and the gains from trade, the terms of trade, and how a tariff protects some at a larger cost to everyone - plus why trade cooperation is itself a prisoner’s dilemma.
8 · Political Economy
When the government is just another player: public choice, rent-seeking and its welfare cost, the median-voter theorem, and why “government failure” can be as real as market failure.
9 · The Investment Climate
The whole toolkit, applied: what makes firms and entrepreneurs actually invest. The World Bank’s determinants - secure property rights, contract enforcement, sensible regulation and taxation, access to finance, infrastructure, and labour markets - and a repeatable way to diagnose any country case.