Abstract:

According to W.E. Becker, economics must not be boring for students. Therefore, the latest economic theories should be incorporated in micro- and macroeconomics curricula. For this reason, he suggests considering a change in the structure and sequence of teaching broadly understood economics. He believes that for many students who have been taking advantage of technological progress since childhood, for example computers, laptops, mobile phones, iPods, etc., book-based discussions about markets are too hypothetical, ignoring current economic events and processes.

The article seeks to present simulation software used to teach microeconomics at universities. The combination of the foundations of economic theories with computer simulations within the MMikroWZUW software is an important and necessary complement to the classical toolbox for the analysis of complex macro- and microeconomic dependencies. By using MMikroWZUW, students and PhD candidates can focus on the interpretation of results to draw logical conclusions rather than on continuous mathematical calculations. Importantly, it was assumed, at the stage of the software development, that MMikroWZUW would be open, meaning that real data, for instance collected in field studies, can be entered already in the first sheet. This allows individual, real functions of demand and supply to be built. The mechanism of market functioning, in particular the theory of consumer choice and demand, is currently developing dynamically. The basic objective of MMikroWZUW, apart from designing a tool to support the teaching process (teaching aspect), is to construct a bank of microeconomic research and simulations (scientific aspect) referring to the consumer choice theory and to distinguish “applicative microeconomics” from broadly understood economics. Attempting to describe the actual behaviour of individual consumers, “applicative economics” is similar to behavioural and experimental economics.

MMikroWZUW is addressed to undergraduate students of economics who will major in: economics, business analytics, social analytics, banking and insurance, finance and accounting, international economic relations, spatial planning, logistics and management. The scope of knowledge is correlated with microeconomics curricula taught by the majority of economic universities in Poland.

Keywords:

Teaching process, simulation, microeconomics.