| Component | Weight | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Four unit tests (20% each) | 80% | 50 multiple-choice questions each, on Canvas with Browser Lockdown, during a one-week window. Up to three attempts, 24 hours apart; highest score counts. |
| Lab participation | 10% | Attendance plus the lab instructor’s evaluations of engagement, collaboration, and perseverance, made several times during the term. |
| Rotating front row | 10% | Two assigned front row days worth 5% each. Full credit for being there and engaging, whether or not you are called to the board. |
Syllabus
EC102 Microeconomics for Business, Fall 2026
| Instructor | Dr. Colleen O’Briant |
| colleen.obriant at ucr.edu | |
| Office | 4106 Sproul Hall (the building closest to the parking lot, fourth floor) |
| Office hours | Mondays and Wednesdays, 3 to 4 pm, or by appointment |
| Lecture | Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:00 am to 12:20 pm, MSE 116 |
| Lab sections | Monday or Wednesday |
| Prerequisites | ECON 002 003, and MATH 009A or equivalent |
Course Schedule
Course description
Intermediate Microeconomics is a 10-week course of 20 lectures and 9 labs built on David M. Kreps, Microeconomics for Managers, 2nd edition (Princeton University Press, 2019). It teaches the core tools of microeconomics, from strategy and pricing through competitive markets to risk and information, with an emphasis on why real firms, markets, and contracts look the way they do.
The course assumes a principles course in economics and comfort with graphs, linear equations, and basic spreadsheets. No calculus is required. Wherever the textbook takes a derivative, lecture and lab show the same result with a picture, a table, or a spreadsheet, and exams are written to match.
Each week has two lectures for the full class. Nine of the ten weeks also have a lab, run in smaller sections, where students play the games, build the spreadsheets, and argue through the cases that the lectures set up. The 20 classes and 9 labs are grouped into four units, and each unit ends with a unit test taken online using Canvas’s Browser Lockdown during a one-week window.
Course objectives
By the end of this course you will be able to look at a price, a contract, a market, or a rivalry and explain why it is the way it is. That is the whole point. Microeconomics is not a set of facts about the economy; it is a way of thinking that lets you take a messy situation apart, see what matters, and put it back together with an answer.
To get there you will learn to do four things.
Model purposeful behavior. Every model in this course starts from someone trying to do as well as they can: a firm choosing a price, a consumer choosing what to buy, a rival deciding whether to cut price, an employee deciding how hard to work. You will learn to write down what the actor wants, what constrains them, and what they will therefore do. Simple models, deliberately. A bakery on the California coast that charges tourists more than locals is a toy, but once you can solve the toy, you can see what airlines are doing.
Find the equilibrium. When several people each pursue their own goals, something has to give. You will learn to find the point where everyone is doing the best they can given what everyone else is doing. Sometimes that is supply equals demand. Often it is something richer: a Nash equilibrium of a game, a tacit agreement not to compete, a price schedule that gets different customers to reveal who they are, or a contract that makes someone work hard without watching them.
Evaluate the outcome. Economics is descriptive and then evaluative. Having worked out what will happen, you will learn to ask whether it is efficient, who gains and who loses, and what a tax, a subsidy, a price control, or a change in the rules would do. You will also learn where the economist’s toolkit runs out and questions of fairness and politics take over.
Reason from cases to principles and back. Kreps likens learning economics to learning tennis: you hit fifty backhands in a row before you play a match. Lectures teach the strokes with stripped-down models. Labs are where you play. You will run cartels that collapse, price goods in spreadsheets, trade in a market that finds its equilibrium in front of you, and sell used cars to people who suspect they are lemons. By the end you should be able to walk into an unfamiliar industry and ask the right first questions.
Why the course runs in this order
We follow the textbook’s own sequence, which is not the usual one. Most intermediate courses start with consumers and firms, build up to supply and demand, and reach game theory and information at the end if time allows. Kreps begins with the economics of relationships and game theory, moves to pricing, puts consumer and producer theory and competitive markets in the middle, and ends with risk, information, and incentives.
The reason is that strategy, pricing, and incentives are the topics that most naturally connect to things you have already noticed about the world, so they are the best place to start and to finish. The more abstract material sits in the middle, after you have seen why it is needed: by the time we derive a cost curve, you will have spent three weeks using one. The textbook’s Part III is the part we go through fastest and most lightly, since this course is about using the tools rather than proving them.
How class and lab work
I teach by asking questions rather than by presenting slides, because an idea you have worked out for yourself is understood far more deeply than one you have merely been told. Every class page in the course workbook has the same three parts, and every class meeting follows them.
Key ideas. A short reading, a page or two, that states the handful of ideas the class is about and sets up the puzzle of the day.
Three problems of the day. The heart of the class. I pose a rich problem, everyone works on it for ten minutes, and then we build the idea together from what you found. The problems are new to everyone and you are not expected to finish them; you are expected to try, to get stuck, and to keep going. Students in the rotating front row work the problems on desk whiteboards with a partner while I look over their shoulders, and I invite the pair who got furthest to explain their reasoning to the class.
Check your understanding. A set of multiple-choice questions at the end of each class and lab page. Work them after class, without notes, before you move on. The unit tests are built from these questions, so they are also your study guide.
Labs follow the same pattern with one harder problem instead of three. At the start of each lab you are randomly assigned to a group of three and given one marker and a section of whiteboard. The lab instructor presents the problem of the day, circulates, and does not give answers; if your group is stuck, talk it through, look at what other groups are trying, or ask them. The last few minutes are a gallery walk and debrief, so leave your work on the board.
Grading
Unit tests. Each of the four unit tests is 50 multiple-choice questions built from the check-your-understanding questions on the class and lab pages for that unit. Tests are taken on Canvas using Browser Lockdown; keep your eyes on the screen, and an attempt Canvas flags for suspicious behavior receives a zero. Each test is open for one week, Monday morning through Sunday night, and you choose when to take it. You have 75 minutes per attempt, up to three attempts, and you must wait 24 hours after finishing an attempt before starting the next. Only your highest score counts. To protect the questions during the window you will not see which answers were right or wrong after an attempt; instead you get a score by topic (for example, Nash equilibrium: 70%, Repeated games: 90%) so you know what to review before trying again. Because there are multiple attempts over a full week there are no makeup tests; if a documented emergency keeps you from the entire window, contact me before it closes.
Lab participation. You must attend the section you are registered for, and arriving late or leaving early may count as an absence. Beyond attendance, your lab instructor evaluates your group on engagement (standing at the board, technology away, attention on the problem), collaboration (sharing the marker, listening, including everyone), and perseverance (trying again when stuck, borrowing ideas from other groups).
Rotating front row. On your two assigned days you sit in the front row and work the problems of the day on a desk whiteboard with a partner. You do not need to solve them; you need to make an honest effort and stay engaged. Front row days are assigned by last name on Canvas and are tradeable: find a classmate to swap with and email me, copying them. If an emergency keeps you from your day, email me with documentation and we will reschedule.
Each front row day is worth 5% of your grade. You have two.
| Last name starts with… | Rotating Front Row is… |
|---|---|
| A, B | Class 2: 9/29 and Class 11: 10/29 |
| C, D | Class 3: 10/1 and Class 12: 11/3 |
| E, F, G | Class 4: 10/6 and Class 13: 11/5 |
| H, I, J | Class 5: 10/8 and Class 14: 11/10 |
| K, L | Class 6: 10/13 and Class 15: 11/12 |
| M, N | Class 7: 10/15 and Class 16: 11/17 |
| O, P, Q, R | Class 8: 10/20 and Class 17: 11/19 |
| S, T | Class 9: 10/22 and Class 19: 12/1 |
| U, V, W, X, Y, Z | Class 10: 10/27 and Class 20: 12/3 |
Materials and prerequisites
The recommended text is David M. Kreps, Microeconomics for Managers, 2nd edition, Princeton University Press, 2019. This course workbook is your home base: each class and lab page has the key ideas, the problems of the day, and the check-your-understanding questions, and class notes are published there after each class. Canvas is used for unit tests, grades, and announcements.
Prerequisites are a principles of microeconomics course, or equivalent, and comfort with graphs and solving two linear equations in two unknowns. Basic probability (expected value of a gamble) is used in Weeks 9 and 10 and reviewed in Class 17. No calculus, statistics, accounting, or finance is assumed, and the book’s asides that draw on those fields are optional reading.
Course policies
Attendance and missed work
Lab attendance and front row participation are graded, so absences lower your grade directly. If you miss your front row day because of an emergency, email me with documentation and we will reschedule you. Unit tests have a one-week window and multiple attempts, so there are no makeup tests; if a documented emergency keeps you from the entire window, contact me before it closes.
Use of AI
This course exists to make you a stronger thinker, and the evidence is that outsourcing your thinking to AI does the opposite: students who practice math with AI do worse once it is taken away (Bastani et al., PNAS, 2025), and people who write with AI engage their brains less and remember less of what they produce (Kosmyna et al., 2025).
Accordingly, no AI tools of any kind may be used during class, lab, or unit tests. If you find that you cannot work a problem without it, that is the signal to come to office hours.
Academic integrity
All work you submit must be your own. On unit tests this means: no notes, books, websites, AI tools, or other people; keep your eyes on the screen; and do not photograph, copy, share, or discuss test questions during the testing window. Attempts flagged by Canvas for suspicious behavior receive a zero, and cases of suspected misconduct are referred to Student Conduct and Academic Integrity Programs under UCR’s Academic Integrity Policies. Collaboration in lab is not only allowed but required; that is what the lab grade rewards.
Accommodations
If you have a disability or medical condition that affects your participation, register with the Student Disability Resource Center (sdrc.ucr.edu) and send me your accommodation letter as early in the quarter as possible so we can put arrangements in place, including extended time on unit tests. Please also let me know if a standing accommodation applies to lab, where students normally stand at the whiteboard.
Wellbeing and support
College is hard, and this course asks a lot of you. If you are struggling, whether with the material or with anything else, please reach out to me early; I would much rather help you find a path forward in week 3 than in week 10. UCR resources include Counseling and Psychological Services (counseling.ucr.edu), Basic Needs and the R’Pantry (basicneeds.ucr.edu), the Academic Resource Center (arc.ucr.edu), and Student Health Services. In an emergency, call 911 or UCPD.
Changes to this syllabus
I may adjust the schedule or policies during the quarter if it serves the class. Any change will be announced in lecture and on Canvas, and this page will be updated.