Microeconomics 1

Main course materials

The main reference for my half of the course is my lecture notes. Please regularly check that you have the latest version. I last updated the notes at 2:10PM, Tuesday 29 of October. You can see what changed using Adobe Acrobat Pro on the uCreate computers. Choose Tools -> Compare Documents, and select the PDFs containing the old and new versions of the notes. You can download the Latex source if you want to annotate or contribute improvements to the notes.

You can read the Assessment guide with practice exam questions and sample solutions with commentary.

News

You can browse last year's course materials, which follow a similar schedule.

Assessment

Details on the assessment (including the marking criteria) are included in the practice question file. Two students kindly donated their marked exam scripts in 2017-8. Note that the December and May exams are marked on the same scale.

Extra Reference

Some students like an extra reference, although it is unnecessary. I will only test knowledge from my notes. The references below are also available as a clickable reference list via the library.

Material marked with a star in the notes will only be tested in bonus questions; it is possible to get a distinction in the class without learning the starred material. My notes are closer to Varian and Kreps than MWG, but quite different from all of them. Ambitious students who would like a strong background in mathematics might want to read Maxwell Rosenlicht's (1968) "Introduction to Analysis" or Luenberger's (1969) "Optimization by Vector Space Methods". Angel de la Fuente's (2000) "Mathematical Methods and Models for Economists" is also helpful.

MWG means Mas-Colell, Whinston and Green's (1995) "Microeconomic Theory". V means Varian's (1992) "Microeconomic Analysis". K means Kreps' (1990) "A Course in Microeconomic Theory". KK means Kreps' (2013) "Microeconomic Foundations 1: Choice and Competitive Markets". SL means Stokey and Lucas (1989), "Recursive Methods in Economic Dynamics". Debreu (1960) is Topological methods in cardinal utility theory.

  1. Introduction
  2. Production
    1. Production Functions   See: V1, MWG5, K7.1
    2. Profit Maximization   See: V2, MWG5, K7.2
    3. Upper Envelopes and Value Functions   See: V3, SL4, MWG5, K7.2
    4. Cost Functions and Dynamic Programming   See: V4, SL4, MWG5, K7.3, K.A.2
    5. Upper Envelopes with Constraints   See: V5, SL4, MWG5, K7.3
  3. Consumption
    1. Utility Functions   See: V7, MWG3, K2.1
    2. Utility Maximization   See: V7, MWG3, K2.2
    3. Consumer’s Value and Policy Functions   See: V7, MWG3, K2.2, K2.3
    4. Expenditure Function and Policy Functions   See: V7, MWG3, K2.2, K2.3
    5. Slutsky Decomposition   See: V8, MWG3, K2.3
  4. Time
    1. Time Preference   See: Debreu (1960), V19, SL4, SL5, MWG20, KK2.5
  5. Equilibrium
    1. Economies   See V17, V18, V19, MWG16, K6.1, K6.2
    2. Efficient Allocations   See V17, V18, V19, MWG16, MWG22, K5.2
    3. Equilibrium   See V17, V18, V19, MWG16, K6.1
    4. Characterising Equilibria   See V17, MWG15, MWG16, MWG20, K2.2
    5. Efficiency of Equilibria   See V17, MWG16, K6.3
    6. *Existence of Equilibria   See V17, MWG17, K6.4
    7. Implementation of Efficient Allocations   See V17, MWG16, K6.3