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
12:00AM, Monday 22 of April.
You can see what changed using Adobe Acrobat Pro on the uCreate computers.
Choose Tools -> Compare Documents
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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 practice exam questions and sample solutions with commentary.
You can browse last year's course materials.
News
- Provisional marks for the December exam are available. The quintiles are 43, 50, 55, 58, 65, 95. Sample solutions along with commentary are available in the sample solutions file above. Also, more details on how marks are calculated are available in the start of the same file. You can view your exam scripts during my office hours; please bring your student card.
- Lecture videos are available on Learn. To access them, select Microeconomics 1, and then Media Hopper Replay.
- Week 5: lecture whiteboard notes
bonus whiteboard notes
- We did Sections 4.6 and 4.7, practice questions 6 and 26. We did C.8 and some of C.9 in the bonus lecture.
- Homework: practice questions 2, 10, 11.
- Week 4: lecture whiteboard notes
bonus whiteboard notes
- We did Sections 3.6, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5. In the bonus material, we finished C.6 and did C.7.
- Homework: 3.10, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3
- Week 3: lecture whiteboard notes
bonus whiteboard notes
- We did Sections 2.5, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5. In the bonus material, we did C.5 and started C.6.
- Homework: 2.16, 3.1, 3.3, 3.6, 3.9
- Week 2: lecture whiteboard notes
bonus whiteboard notes
- We did Sections 2.3 and 2.4. The bonus material was finishing C.2, C.3 and C.4 (except the last proof).
- Homework: 2.8, 2.9, 2.10, 2.12, 2.13.
- Week 1: lecture whiteboard notes
bonus whiteboard notes
- The first hour every week (until 10am) contains bonus material which is entirely optional. Throughout these bonus lectures, I will cover some of the material from Appendix C, which is about Metric Spaces. It is primarily for students who want to do PhDs.
- The main lecture covered Chapter 1, Sections 2.1 and 2.2, and Appendix D. The bonus material covered C.1 and started C.2.
- This course uses quite a lot of mathematics notation and terminology. I will explain the notation in lectures, but you might also find reading Appendix A this week to be helpful.
- Homework: Questions 2.1, 2.2, 2.6, and 2.7 from the lecture notes.
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. All of these references are listed in the library's resource list system.
- Introduction
- Production
- Production Functions See: V1, MWG5, K7.1
- Profit Maximization See: V2, MWG5, K7.2
- Upper Envelopes and Value Functions See: V3, SL4, MWG5, K7.2
- Cost Functions and Dynamic Programming See: V4, SL4, MWG5, K7.3, K.A.2
- Upper Envelopes with Constraints See: V5, SL4, MWG5, K7.3
- Consumption
- Utility Functions See: V7, MWG3, K2.1
- Time Preference See: Debreu (1960), V19, SL4, SL5, MWG20, KK2.5
- Utility Maximization See: V7, MWG3, K2.2
- Consumer’s Value and Policy Functions See: V7, MWG3, K2.2, K2.3
- Expenditure Function and Policy Functions See: V7, MWG3, K2.2, K2.3
- Slutsky Decomposition See: V8, MWG3, K2.3
- Equilibrium
- Economies See V17, V18, V19, MWG16, K6.1, K6.2
- Efficient Allocations See V17, V18, V19, MWG16, MWG22, K5.2
- Equilibrium See V17, V18, V19, MWG16, K6.1
- Characterising Equilibria See V17, MWG15, MWG16, MWG20, K2.2
- Efficiency of Equilibria See V17, MWG16, K6.3
- *Existence of Equilibria See V17, MWG17, K6.4
- Implementation of Efficient Allocations See V17, MWG16, K6.3