ECONOMICS 420K - MICROECONOMIC THEORY
R. Dusansky
Office:BRB 2.102E
Telephone: 471-3664
E-mail: Dusansky@eco.utexas.edu
OFFICE HOURS: Tuesday And Thursday
1:00-2 00 And By Appointment
COURSE PREREQUISITES
Economics 304K, Economics 304L and the calculus sequence.
TEXTBOOK
Walter Nicholson and Christopher Snyder, Microeconomic Theory: Basic
Principles and Extensions, 10th edition.
TAKE-HOME QUIZES
A take-home quiz will be distributed each Friday and will be collected
at the BEGINNING of class one week later. Each quiz will usually have
three questions. Completed take-home quizes must be submitted on
8.5 x 11.0 inch paper. Late submissions will not be accepted.
(NOTE: if you submit a take-home quiz EARLY, give it directly to the TA).
EXAM DATES and FINAL GRADE
Your final grade will be based on the average quiz score (25%)
and three term exams (25% each).
THE TERM EXAMS WILL BE GIVEN ON:
OCTOBER 1 (Thursday),
NOVEMBER 3 (Tuesday) and
DECEMBER 4 (Thursday).
PLUS/MINUS grades will be assigned for the final grade.
MISSED EXAM POLICY
A missed exam will result in a failing grade, UNLESS acceptable medical
documentation is provided. If a make-up exam is not offered, each of the
other two exams will carry a weight of 37.5% instead of 25%. If a make-up
exam is offered, it may be written or oral. If you are eligible to take
a make-up exam, be prepared to be examined very shortly after the missed
scheduled exam.
WEEKLY RECITATION SESSION
Your TA is Jorge Barro. Each Friday he will review the weekly quiz and
present supplementary material for which you are responsible. Attendance
is MANDATORY. Feel free to contact Mr. Barro during his office hours or
by special appointment. He is devoted to helping you master the material
in this course.
TA email address: jorge.barro@gmail.com
TA Office location: BRB 4.118
TA Office Hours:Wednesday & Thursday, 10:00-11:00 and by appointment.
WARNING
Although class attendance is not used in determining the final grade,
ATTENDANCE IS REQUIRED. I supplement the text material in many ways.
You are responsible for the assigned material in the text AND
for the material presented in class.
REQUIRED READING
A. PERSONAL REVIEW
Mathematics of Optimization...................Chapter 2
B. CHOICE AND DEMAND
Preferences and Utility.......................Chapter 3
Utility Maximization and Choice...............Chapter 4
Income and Substitution Effects...............Chapter 5
Demand Relationships Among Goods..............Chapter 6
Pareto Efficiency in Consumption..............Chapter 13, pp467 and 476-478
Intertemporal Optimization....................Class Lecture
C. PRODUCTION AND SUPPLY
Production Functions..........................Chapter 9
Costs.........................................Chapter 10
Profit Maximization and Input Demand..........Chapter 11
D. COMPETITIVE MARKETS AND MARKET FAILURE
Perfect Competition and Partial Equilibrium...Chapter 12
General Equilibrium and Pareto Optimality.....Chapter 13
Monopoly and Price Discrimination.............Chapter 14
Social Choice and Voting......................Class Lecture
E. SELECTED TOPICS (If Time Permits)
Strategy and Game Theory......................Chapter 8
Externalities and Public Goods................Chapter 19
SUBJECT MATTER OF CLASS MEETINGS
August 27 Methodology
September
1 Preferences, axioms of choice and indifference curves
3 Utility functions and the budget constraint
8 Examples of budget constraints with "kinks"
10 Utility maximation, demand and duality
15 Income and Substitution effects
17 Properties of demand functions and the Slutsky Equation
22 Economic analysis: applications 1
24 Economic analysis: applications 2
29 Pareto efficiency in consumption
October
1 EXAM #1
6 Intertemporal optimization
8 Applications and analysis
13 Production functions and isoquants
15 Returns to scale and technical progress
20 Cost minimization
22 Short-run and long-run cost functions
27 Output choice and profit maximization
27 Firm supply and input demand
November
3 EXAM #2
5 Perfect Competition and partial equilibrium
10 Long-run equlibrium and market entry
12 Pareto efficiency in production
17 General Equilibrium and the Welfare Theorems
19 Monopoly and welfare loss
24 Price discrimination and regulation
December
1 Social choice, the Impossibility Theorem and voting
3 EXAM #3
NOTICE: Students with disabilities may request appropriate academic
accommodations from the Division of Diversity and Community
Engagement, Services for Students with Disabilities, 471-6259
