Mikroökonomie

Mikroökonomie is a branch of economics that studies the behavior of individual economic agents, such as households and firms, and how their decisions interact in markets. It focuses on the allocation of scarce resources and the determination of prices for goods and services. Key concepts within mikroökonomie include supply and demand, elasticity, market structures (perfect competition, monopoly, oligopoly), consumer theory, and producer theory.

The core principle of mikroökonomie is that individual agents make rational choices to maximize their utility or profit, given their constraints. For consumers, this involves deciding how to spend their income on various goods and services to achieve the greatest satisfaction. For firms, it involves determining production levels and prices to maximize profits. The interaction of these individual decisions in markets, driven by the forces of supply and demand, ultimately determines market prices and quantities.

Mikroökonomie provides a framework for understanding a wide range of economic phenomena, from the pricing of individual products to the efficiency of different market structures. It is essential for analyzing topics such as taxation, regulation, and the impact of government policies on specific industries and consumers. While macroökonomie examines the economy as a whole, mikroökonomie provides the foundational building blocks for understanding the aggregate behavior studied in macroökonomie.