Unit I: Introduction to Microeconomics

• What is microeconomics?
• Central problems

Unit II: Consumer Behaviour and Demand

• Consumer’s Equilibrium: meaning and attainment of equilibrium through Utility Approach: One and two commodity cases.
• Demand: market demand, determinants of demand, demand schedule, demand curve, movement along and shifts in the demand curve, price elasticity of demand, measurement of price elasticity of demand – percentage, total expenditure, and geometric methods

Introductory Macroeconomics

Unit III: National Income and Related Aggregates — Basic Concepts and Measurement

• Macroeconomics: meaning.
• Circular flow of income, concepts of GDP, GNP, NDP, NNP (at market price and factor cost).
• Measurement of National Income – Value Added method, Income method, and Expenditure method.

Unit IV: Determination of Income and Employment

• Aggregate demand, aggregate supply, and their components
• Propensity to consume and propensity to save (average and marginal)
• Meaning of involuntary unemployment and full employment
• Determination of income and employment: two-sector model
• Concept of investment multiplier and its working
• Problems of excess and deficient demand
• Measures to correct excess and deficient demand – availability of credit, change in government spending

Unit V: Money and Banking

• Money: meaning, evolution, and functions
• Central Bank: meaning and functions
• Commercial banks: meaning and functions

Unit VI: Government Budget and the Economy

• Government budget – meaning and its components
• Objectives of government budget
• Classification of receipts – revenue and capital; classification of expenditure – revenue and capital, plan and non-plan, and developmental and non-developmental
• Balanced budget, surplus budget, and deficit budget: meaning and implications
• Revenue deficit, fiscal deficit, and primary deficit: meaning and implications; measures to contain different deficits.

Unit VII: Balance of Payments

• Foreign exchange rate – meaning (fixed and flexible), merits and demerits; determination through demand and supply
• Balance of payments accounts – meaning and components
• A brief analysis of recent exchange rate issues

INDIAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Unit VIII: Development Experience (1947-90) and Economic Reforms since 1991

• A brief introduction of the state of the Indian economy on the eve of independence. Indian economic system and common goals of Five-year Plans.
• Main features, problems, and policies of agriculture (institutional aspects and new agricultural strategy), industry (IPR 1956; SSI – role & importance), and foreign trade.

Unit IX: Current Challenges Facing the Indian Economy

• Poverty – absolute and relative; Main programmes for poverty alleviation: A critical assessment;
• Human Capital Formation – How many people become resource; Role of human capital in economic development;
• Rural development: Key issues – credit and marketing – role of cooperatives; agricultural diversification;
• Employment: Growth and changes in workforce participation rate in formal and informal sectors; problems and policies
• Infrastructure: Meaning and Types: Case Studies: Health: Problems and Policies – A critical assessment;
• Sustainable Economic Development: Meaning, Effects of Economic Development on Resources and Environment, including global warming

Unit X: Development Experience in India

• A comparison with neighbours
• India and Pakistan
• India and China
• Issues: economic growth, population, sectoral development and other Human Development Indicators