Economics 401: Intermediate Microeconomics, fall 2011
Instructor: Prof. Jeremy A. Sandford
Office hour: W 10-11am, 335L B&E, or by appointment
Lecture:
2-3:15pm TH, BE 305
Midterm dates:
Tuesday, September 27, in class and Thursday, October 27, in class
Final
date: Thursday, December 15
10:30am-12:30pm
Required texts: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, Microeconomics, Pearson/Prentice Hall, Hellman and Alper, Economics of Crime, Theory and Practice, Pearson Custom Publishing
Homework 1, answers
Homework 1 (hard
version), due 9/14/11, by 9am
Homework 2, answers
Homework 3, answers
Homework 4, answers
Homework 5, due 11/17
in class
Homework 6/final exam prep
not collected
Note: For some, but not all, of the classes, I will be posting lecture notes written by another economist. These are not required readings, and should not be presumed to be comprehensive, but they may complement your reading of the textbook and attendance at my lectures.
Schedule
Thursday, August 25: Consumer incentives I: budget
constraints and indifference curves
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 3
Lecture notes 1
Tuesday, August 30: Consumer incentives II: utility
maximization
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 3
Lecture notes 2
Thursday, September 1: From utility maximization to demand
curves, special cases of preferences
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapters 3, 4.1
Lecture notes 2
Tuesday, September 6: Utility maximization under uncertainty
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 5
Lecture notes 3
Thursday, September 8: Utility maximization under
uncertainty
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 5
Lecture notes 3
Tuesday, September 13: Firms, production functions,
isoquants
reading: Pundyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 6
Lecture notes 4
Thursday, September 15: Cost functions, profit
maximization
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 7
Lecture notes 5
Tuesday, September 20: Profit maximization and market
structure, perfectly competitive firms
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 8
Lecture notes 6
Thursday, September 22: Monopoly
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 10
Lecture notes 7
Tuesday, September 27: Midterm 1, answers
Thursday, September 29: Game theory: introduction,
vocabulary, the prisoners' dilemma, dominant and dominated strategies, Nash
equilibrium
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 13
Lecture notes 8
Tuesday, October 4: Game theory: Nash equilbirum, mixed
strategies, large games
An exercise in game theory
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 13
Lecture notes 8
Thursday, October 6: Game theory: sequential games,
commitment
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 13
Lecture notes 9
Tuesday, October 11: Asymmetric information: adverse
selection and market collapse
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 17.1
The
market for "Lemons" by George Akerlof (link may require you to be on
campus)
Lecture notes 10
Thursday, October 13: Education as a signal
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, section 17.2
Job market
signaling, by Michael Spence (link may require you to be on campus)
Lecture notes 10
Tuesday, October 18: Moral hazard, efficiency wages
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 17.3-17.6
Lecture notes 11
Thursday, October 20: Public goods
Tuesday, October 25: Externalities
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 18
Lecture notes 13
Thursday, October 27: Midterm 2 (with answers)
Tuesday, November 1: Economics of crime: measuring crime,
crime trends of last 50 years
reading: Hellman and Alper, chapter 1
Thursday, November 3: Causes of 1990's decrease in crime
reading: Hellman and Alper, chapter 1
Levitt, S., 2004, Understanding why crime fell in the 1990's: Four
factors that explain the decline and six that do not, The Journal of
Economic Perspectives, 18.1, pp 163-190
Tuesday, November 8: Measuring the ecnomic impact of crime
reading: Hellman and Alper, chapter 2
Anderson, D., 1999, The aggregate burden of crime, The Journal of Law and
Economics, 42.2, pp.611-642
Thursday, November 10: A simple economic model of criminal
behavior
reading: Hellman and Alper, chapter 3
Tuesday, November 15: Optimal allocation of criminal justic
resources
reading: Hellman and Alper, chapter 4
Thursday, November 17: The deterrence effect of the death
penalty and prison conditions, econometrics primer
reading: Levitt, S. (2003) "Prison conditions, captial punishment, and
deterrence", American Law and Economics review, 5.2, pp. 318-343
Tuesday, November 22: No class (Snooki's birthday)
Thursday, November 24: No class (Thanksgiving)
Tuesday, November 29: The markets for heroin and cocaine
(chart)
reading: Hellman and Alper, chapter 8
Thursday, December 1: Organized crime
reading: Hellman and Alper, chapter 9
Tuesday, December 6: Economics of drug distribution
reading: Levitt, S. and S. Venkatesh (2000),
"An economic analysis of a drug-selling gang's finances", Quarterly
Journal of Economics, 115.3, pp. 755-789
Thursday, December 8: Pirates
reading: Leeson, P. (2007), "An-arrgh-chy: The law and economics of
pirate organization", Journal of Political Economy, 115.6, pp.
1049-1094
Thursday, December 15: Final exam, 10:30am-12:30pm