This document discusses key concepts in managerial economics including:
1) Managerial economics applies microeconomic theory to help businesses make decisions to maximize profits. It studies the behavior of individual economic agents and the costs of resources.
2) The total economic cost of a firm includes both explicit monetary costs and implicit opportunity costs of using the firm's resources. Maximizing economic profit, rather than just accounting profit, is the objective of firms.
3) There can be conflicts between the goals of managers and owners, known as principal-agent problems. Firms use mechanisms like executive compensation to help align these goals.