<p>Do you have to be good at calculus to be good at intermediate microeconomics?</p>
<p>Eh from what I remember you had to know basic calculus, but not be a genius in it.</p>
<p>Simply put, it’s difficult to be “good” at intermediate microecon if you’re messing up when going through the calculations for maximizing all of the utility functions that you’ll be dealing with (for example). You don’t want to end up looking at an equation, knowing what you need to do with it, but not being able to actually do that thing because it’s (relatively) mathematically complex compared to what you’ve seen before.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard, you have to be efficient at doing a small subset of calculus problems. Most of the rest of calculus isn’t that important to economics.</p>
<p>This question has been asked a few times already. It depends on how advanced your micro class will be. You’ll probably deal with elasticities represented as derivatives rather than an algebraic equation. Beyond that, it’s mostly finding a derivative, setting it to zero, and solving, which shouldn’t be difficult. </p>
<p>You probably won’t have to use calculus when talking about utility unless your class is quite advanced. This is because intermediate micro is the first time people see indifference curves and the professor will probably focus on explaining their graphic representation. In order to do utility maximization mathematically you need to be familiar with partial derivatives. Unless the class prereq is calc 3 you’ll probably just use calculus for elasticities and when talking about market structures.</p>
<p>I heard you have to know language multipliers and partial derivatives for intermediate microeconomics. I didn’t learn them in Calc I… are they difficult?</p>
<p>No. You can learn the techniques in one day. The details can get tricky for a Calc III setting (systems of equations for Lagrange multipliers and the chain rule for partial derivatives), but I don’t think particularly difficult examples would be used for an intermediate microeconomics course (disclaimer - I have not taken an intermediate microeconomics course before, but I don’t see a reason why a professor would pick hard examples as that only tests algebra skills and not economics).</p>
<p>Well, it makes it a LOT easier.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses. Anyone know some resource(s) that I can use to review math specifically needed for intermediate microeconomics?</p>