The economics of food and agricultural markets / [electronic resource] Andrew P. Barkley.

Introduction to the study of economics -- Supply and demand -- Markets -- Elasticities -- Welfare economics : consumer and producer surplus -- The motivation for and consequences of free trade -- Price ceiling -- Price support -- Quantity control (supply control) -- import quota -- Taxes -- Subsidies -- Market power introduction -- Monopoly profit-maximizing solution -- Marginal revenue and the elasticity of demand -- Monopoly characteristics -- Monopoly power -- Monopsony -- Introduction to pricing with market power -- Price discrimination -- Intertemporal price discrimination -- Peak load pricing -- Two part pricing -- Bundling -- Advertising -- Market structures -- Monopolistic competition -- Oligopoly -- Game theory introduction -- Equilibrium in dominant strategies -- Nash equilibrium -- Advertising game -- Maximin strategy (safety first) -- Cooperative strategy (collusion) -- Game theory example: steak pricing game -- Repeated games -- Sequential games -- First move advantage -- Commitment and credibility.

"The Economics of Food and Agricultural Markets is written for applied intermediate microeconomics courses. The book showcases the power of economic principles to explain and predict issues and current events in the food, agricultural, agribusiness, international trade, and natural resource sectors. The field of agricultural economics is relevant, important and interesting. The study of market structures, also called industrial organization, provides powerful, timely, and useful tools for any individual or group making personal choices, business decisions, or public policies in food and agriculture industries. Readers will benefit from a large number of real-world examples and applications of the economic concepts under discussion. The book introduces economic principles in a succinct and reader-friendly format, providing students and instructors with a clear, up-to-date, and straightforward approach to learning how a market-based economy functions, and how to use simple economic principles for improved decision making. The principles are applied to timely, interesting, and important real-world issues through words, graphs, and simple algebra and calculus. This book is intended for students who study agricultural economics, microeconomics, rural development and environmental policy. The goal of the book is to encourage students to learn to "think like an economist" through application of benefits and costs to every decision, idea, and strategic decision. This objective is accomplished by including extended examples that cover such topics as the analysis of consumer decisions, supply and demand, and market efficiency; the design of pricing strategies; advertising and marketing decisions; and public policy analysis."--Open Textbook Library.