Economics 401: Intermediate Microeconomics, spring 2012


Instructor: Prof. Jeremy A. Sandford

Office hour: T 3-4pm, 335L B&E, or by appointment
Lecture: 9-9:50am TH, BE 305

Quiz dates: Monday, January 30, Monday, February 13, Wednesday, February 29, Friday, March 23, in class
Final exam date: Thursday, May 3, 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

Syllabus

Last year's website

Homework 1, answers
Homework 2, answers
Homework 3, answers
Homework 4, answers
Homework 5, due 4/18/12
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


Wednesday, January 11: Intro: microeconomics is the study of incentives and their consequences

Friday, January 13: Consumer incentives I: budget constraints and indifference curves
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 3
Lecture notes 1

Monday, January 16: No class, Martin Luther King Day

Wednesday, January 18: Propoerties of indifference curves
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 3
Lecture notes 1

Friday, January 20: consumer choice, graphical
Lecture notes 2

Monday, January 23: utility maximization
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 3
Lecture notes 2

Wednesday, January 25: utility maximization, marginal utility
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 3
Lecture notes 2

Friday, January 27: special cases of utility functions: perfect complements and perfect substitutes
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 3
Lecture notes 2

Monday, January 30: Quiz #1 (with answers) (on consumer choice model)

Wednesday, February 1: expected utility and uncertainty
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 5 (skip 5.4)
Lecture notes 3

Friday, February 3: expected utility and uncertainty
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 5 (skip 5.4)
Lecture notes 3

Monday, February 6: No class

Wednesday, February 8: expected utility and uncertainty
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 5 (skip 5.4)
Lecture notes 3

Friday, February 10: Examples of problems involving expected utility
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 5 (skip 5.4)
Lecture notes 3

Monday, February 13: quiz #2

Wednesday, February 15: firm production
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 6
Lecture notes 4

Friday, February 17: isoquants, costs
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 7
Lecture notes 5

Monday, February 20: Profit maximization and market structure, perfectly competitive firms
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 8
Lecture notes 6

Wednesday, February 22: Entry and exit in the perfectly competitive model
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 8
Lecture notes 6

Friday, February 24: Monopoly
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 10
Lecture notes 7

Monday, February 27: Monopoly
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 10
Lecture notes 7

Wednesday, February 29: quiz #3 (with answers)

Friday, March 2: Intro to game theory
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 13
Lecture notes 8

Monday, March 5: no class

Wednesday, March 7: game theory: Nash equilibrium and mixed strategies
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 13
Lecture notes 8

Friday, March 9: game theory: sequential games
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 13
Lecture notes 9

Monday, March 12 - Friday, March 16: No class (spring break)

Monday, March 19: 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

Wednesday, March 21: 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

Friday, March 23: Quiz #4 (with answers)

Monday, March 26: Moral hazard, efficiency wages
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 17.3-17.6
Lecture notes 11

Wednesday, March 28: Public goods
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 18
Lecture notes 12

Friday, March 30: Externalities
reading: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, chapter 18
Lecture notes 13

Monday, April 2: Economics of crime: measuring crime, crime trends of last 50 years
reading: Hellman and Alper, chapter 1

Wednesday, April 4: 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

Friday, April 6: 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

Monday, April 9: 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

Wednesday, April 11: A simple economic model of criminal behavior
reading: Hellman and Alper, chapter 3

Friday, April 13: Optimal allocation of criminal justic resources
reading: Hellman and Alper, chapter 4

Monday, April 16: 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

Wednesday, April 18: 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

Friday, April 20: No class

Monday, April 23: The markets for heroin and cocaine (chart)
reading: Hellman and Alper, chapter 8

Wednesday, April 25: 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

Friday, April 27: 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, May 3, 10:30am-12:30pm: Final exam, room BE 305