Microeconomic Theory (Econ500 MSPE)
Syllabus
Instructor: Professor
Stefan Krasa
Course TA: Micah Pollak
Time: - Section M: Monday and Wednesday, 9:30-11:20am in 215 DKH.
- Section M1: Monday and Wednesday, 11:30am-1:20pm in 215 DKH.
On Monday, August 31 the class is taught in the computer lab in 901 W. Oregon Street.,
- Section M: 9:00am-10:50am
- Section M1: 11:00am-12:50pm
TA Section: There is a TA recitation every Friday (starts on August 28):
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Section M: 11:00am-12:20pm, 215DKH
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Section M1: 12:30pm-1:50pm, 215DKH
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Text books: Microeconomics, by
Pindyck and Rubinfeld
Examinations: Your course grade will be
determined by adding the points you received the two midterm
examinations, the final, and the homework. I will post
information on how the point score translates into a letter grade.
- Mid-term Examination I: October 5, during class. The maximum is 100 points.
- Mid-term Examinations II: November 4, during class. The maximum is 100 points.
You should consider these dates to be firm and put them in
your schedule. If there is a change, it will be announced sufficiently
in advance.
Final examination: Thursday, December 17, 8:00-11:00am (room will be announced)
If necessary, there will be a Conflict final examination: on Friday, December 18, 8:00-11:00am (room will be announced)
The maximum score on the final is 100 points.
Homework will be posted weekly (except for exam weeks) and is due on Wednesday. Homework will be
graded. The maximum score on each homework is about 3 points.
You can choose to do the homework in teams of up to three students. Each
team submits one copy of the homework that lists all the team
members. The relative contribution of each team member will be
evaluated at the end of the course. Once you have chosen to work in a
particular team, you cannot change the team without my
explicit permission. Discussing homework questions before the due date
with students of other teams is not allowed. Obviously, copying
is not allowed either. Thus, if you want to discuss homework questions
with other students, then you should join a team.
Course Content:
- Introduction (Chapter references refer to the textbook):
- Supply and Demand (Chapter 2)
- Optimization (Not in the textbook but see also the Appendix to Chapter
4)
- Consumer Behavior and Demand (Chapters 3 and 4)
- Preferences (Chapter 3.1)
- Budget Constraint (Chapter 3.2)
- Consumer Choice (Chapter 3.3)
- Marginal Utility (Chapter 3.5)
- Cost of Living Indices (Chapter 3.6)
- Individual Demand (Chapter 4.1)
- Income and Substitution Effect (Chapter 4.2)
- Market Demand (Chapter 4.3)
- Choice under Uncertainty (Chapter 5)
- Markets with Asymmetric Information (Chapter 17)
- Game Theory (Chapter 13)
- Production (Chapter 6)
- Costs of Production (Chapter 7.1)
- Competitive Profit Maximization (Chapter 8.1-8.3)
- The Analysis of Competitive Markets (Chapter 9)
- Monopoloy (Chapter 10.1-10.4 and 10.7)
- Pricing with Market Power (Chapter 11).
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