Syllabus

The outline for the course is detailed in the calendar.

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

Recitations: 1 session / week, 1.5 hours / session

Course Description

This course provides an introduction to microeconomic theory designed to meet the needs of students in the economics PhD program. Some parts of the course are designed to teach material that all graduate students should know. Others are used to introduce methodologies. Some topics of recent interest may also be covered.

Enrollment in this course is limited and permission of the instructor is required. Permission can be obtained by attending the first class meeting and providing information about previous coursework in mathematics and economics. The course assumes that students have taken undergraduate intermediate microeconomics classes. It also assumes that students are comfortable with multivariable calculus and linear algebra and have had some exposure to real analysis. Historically, many students from outside the economics department have had difficulty with the course. The enrollment limit may result in well-qualified students being turned away.

Textbooks

Students may choose to use either of two textbooks:

Mas-Colell, Andreu, Michael Whinston, and Jerry Green. Microeconomic Theory. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1995. ISBN: 0195073401.
This is the recommended, primary text for the course and is a detailed, dense text that covers most of what will be covered and much more.

Jehle, Geoffrey, and Philip Reny. Advanced Microeconomic Theory. 2nd ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2000. ISBN: 0321079167.
This book is more readable and still covers much of the course material in about half as much space.

There are several other texts that contain similar material:

Kreps, David. A Course in Microeconomic Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. ISBN: 0691042640.
This text provides more intuition.

Varian, Hal. Microeconomic Analysis. 3rd ed. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1992. ISBN: 0393957357.
This text is more concise.

Grading

The course will be graded on the basis of six problem sets and a final exam. Problem sets will be due in class on assigned lecture dates. They will be graded on a check-, check, check+ basis.

The grades are intended primarily to give you an idea of how you are doing in the course and will affect course grades only for students with borderline scores on the exam. You may work in groups, but please do the write-ups individually. We do not expect to see identical answers from different students. The final exam will be held four days after the last lecture.

Calendar

The calendar below provides information on the course's lecture (L) and recitation (R) sessions.