Scope of Managerial Economics

Scope of Managerial Economics

The scope of managerial economics is not yet clearly laid out because it is a developing science. Even then the following fields may be said to generally fall under Managerial Economics:

1.     Demand Analysis and Forecasting

2.   Cost and Production Analysis

3.   Pricing Decisions, Policies and Practices

4.   Profit Management

5.   Capital Management

These divisions of business economics constitute its subject matter.

Recently, managerial economists have started making increased use of Operation Research methods like Linear programming, inventory models, Games theory, queuing up theory etc., have also come to be regarded as part of Managerial Economics.

1.Demand Analysis and Forecasting: A business firm is an economic organisation which is engaged in transforming productive resources into goods that are to be sold in the market. A major part of managerial decision making depends on accurate estimates of demand. A forecast of future sales serves as a guide to management for preparing production schedules and employing resources. It will help management to maintain or strengthen its market position and profit base. Demand analysis also identifies a number of other factors influencing the demand for a product. Demand analysis and forecasting occupies a strategic place in Managerial Economics.

2.Cost and production analysis: A firm's profitability depends much on its cost of production. A wise manager would prepare cost estimates of a range of output, identify the factors causing are cause variations in cost estimates and choose the cost-minimising output level, taking also into consideration the degree of uncertainty in production and cost calculations. Production processes are under the charge of engineers but the business manager is supposed to carry out the production function analysis in order to avoid wastages of materials and time. Sound pricing practices depend much on cost control. The main topics discussed under cost and production analysis are: Cost concepts, cost-output relationships, Economics and Diseconomies of scale and cost control.

3.Pricing decisions, policies and practices: Pricing is a very important area of Managerial Economics. In fact, price is the genesis of the revenue of a firm ad as such the success of a business firm largely depends on the correctness of the price decisions taken by it. The important aspects dealt with this area are: Price determination in various market forms, pricing methods, differential pricing, product-line pricing and price forecasting.

4.Profit management: Business firms are generally organized for earning profit and in the long period, it is profit which provides the chief measure of success of a firm. Economics tells us that profits are the reward for uncertainty bearing and risk taking. A successful business manager is one who can form more or less correct estimates of costs and revenues likely to accrue to the firm at different levels of output. The more successful a manager is in reducing uncertainty, the higher are the profits earned by him. In fact, profit-planning and profit measurement constitute the most challenging area of Managerial Economics.

5.Capital management: The problems relating to firm's capital investments are perhaps the most complex and troublesome. Capital management implies planning and control of capital expenditure because it involves a large sum and moreover the problems in disposing the capital assets off are so complex that they require considerable time and labour. The main topics dealt with under capital management are cost of capital, rate of return and selection of projects.

Conclusion: The various aspects outlined above represent the major uncertainties which a business firm has to reckon with, viz., demand uncertainty, cost uncertainty, price uncertainty, profit uncertainty, and capital uncertainty. We can, therefore, conclude that the subject-matter of Managerial Economics consists of applying economic principles and concepts towards adjusting with various uncertainties faced by a business firm.