Welcome to the Economics 210A Website. If you are
taking this course, please check this site regularly. I will use
this site
for
posting
announcements about assignments.
Announcements: |
Scheduled Special Events:Nov 4: Midterm ExamNov 6: No section meeting Nov 11: Veterans' Day--No Class Nov 25: Day before Thanksgiving--No Class Dec 9, 12-3pm: Final Exam Office Hours: Tuesday 2-3 pm or by appointment. Two old midterms: Midterm 2007 Midterm 2008 We have not yet covered expected utility theory and questions on expected utility theory will not appear on this year's midterm. Please bring a bluebook to the exam. |
| Class Resources |
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| The main textbook for this course is Advanced
Microeconomic
Theory, by Geoffrey Jehle and Philip
Reny. I have also ordered the massive Microeconomic
Theory, by Andreu Mas Collel, Michael Whinston and Jerry Green,
at the
bookstore. You will be using this text in other courses this term
and I will assign occasional readings from it. A third textbook,
that we will use occasionally is the svelte Lectures in Microeconomic Theory
by Ariel Rubinstein.
You
could
buy the Rubinstein book for $67 ($2 per page) from
Amazon.com. It would be
worth the Amazon price if that were the only way you could get it, but
Professor Rubinstein has put it online for
free. More Free Resources. I have put a pdf copy of Workouts in Microeconomic Theory by Bergstrom and Varian online for this class. This is a workbook that accompanies Varian's undergraduate intermediate microeconomics text Intermediate Economics. I will regularly assign problems from Workouts. If you want a paper copy, you can probably pick up an old edition cheaply and old editions are just about as good as the new one. Same goes for Varian's text (currently in its 7th edition). Some of you might find the Varian text a good place to brush up on intermediate micro. Do you need to brush up on elementary logic and set theory? I suggest reading two chapters from Kenneth May's ``Elements of Modern Mathematics.'' Here they are: Elementary Logic, Elementary Theory of Sets. It has many nice problems and applications (with answers supplied) and is written with wit and charm. Do you want a solid, clear exposition of the mysteries of concave and quasi-concave functions? Let me suggest this chapter from Simon and Blume's ``Mathematics for Economists'' . And while you are at it, why not have a look at their chapter on homogeneous and homothetic functions. In my opinion, most economists would benefit from having the Simon-Blume book as a reference. Want a quick brush-up on logic, sets, concavity, matrices, multivariate calculus, and related mathematical toos for economics? Take a look at this tutorial by Martin Osborne. Link to Matt Lang's answers to problem sets. Tutorials on matrix algebra, eigenthings, and quadratic forms. If you need more practice with the most elementary things in matrix algebra, like multiplying matrices times other matrices, matrices, times vectors, transposing matrices, etc, you might want to look at the Wikipedia discussion of matrix algebra. For a nice discussion of Quadratic Forms and their relation to matrix algebra, I recommend Blume and Simon's Chapter 16, which you can find here. Also you might want to look at this collection of notes on quadratic forms and eigenstuff, which your classmate, Sheetal Gavankar, put together. A graphical demonstration of the directional derivative. You are standing on a mountain, at point x, with your skis pointing in direction y. What is the "slope" of your skis? Check out the discussion at this site or the demo at this one.
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| Problems will be assigned each
week. You will be required to work them and turn them in. Homework
should be neat and legible. Unless you have unusually clear
handwriting, I recommend typing your homework.* Late homework
will not be accepted. I have
no objections to your working together, but I will ask you to
acknowledge
any help that you have had on particular problems. *How do you handle mathematical typing with all its notations and super and subscripts? Now is a good time to start using LaTeX or Scientific Word. LaTeX is the standard language for scientific typesetting and I think a better long-run solution than Scientific Word. Free installations are available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It takes a bit of learning, but this investment in human capital will repay itself many times over. There are several tutorials available on the Web. Chris Albert likes this one: http://haptonstahl.org/latex/index.php Once you get going, you will probably want to buy a good LaTeX manual like Kopka and Daly's A Guide to Latex http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201398257/ I have found however that Google works very well as a reference. If I forget how to do something I type something like "matrix in LaTeX" into Google and am directed to a nice discussion of how to produce matrices (or whatever) in LaTeX. |
| Week 1 |
|
| Reading
Assignment: (Logic Preparation Check: Read the brief chapter on logic in Martin Osborne's tutorial. See that you can do the Exercises that go with it. This is not to hand in. If this material is new to you or you are not confident with it, spend some time with Kenneth May's chapter on logic.) Rubinstein: Introduction and Lecture 1 (Don't skip the introduction.) Mas-Collel, Whinston, Green (MWG) pp 5-9 Jehle and Reny: pages 1-18 Jehle and Reny pages 407-422 Homework Assignment (Due Oct 5) Rubinstein Problem Set 1--Problems 1-3. Jehle and Reny: Exercises 1.3, 1.4, 1.5(a),(c), and (e), 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.9 (Note that there are hints for some of the J and R problems in the back of the book) Jehle and Reny: (page 453) Exercises A.1.5, A.1.7, A.1.8, A.1.16, A.1.17,A1.18 |
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| Week 2 |
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Reading Assignment: Rubinstein: Lectures 2, 3, 4 (In Lecture 2, read the discussion and the results. Don't worry with these proofs unless you have a strong math background.) Jehle and Reny: pp 19-39 Jehle and Reny: pp 423-431 Mas-Collel, Whinston, Green (MWG) pp 10-16 Homework Assignment: (Due Oct 12) Jehle and Reny: Exercises 1.12, 1.16, 1.24, 1.25, 1.26, 1.27 (Hint for J and R. 1.27: Draw the indifference curves for this utility function. What do the indifference curves look like if a=1? What if a>1? What if a<1?) Jehle and Reny: Exercises A.1.24, A.1.26 (pp 454-455) Bergstrom and Varian Workouts Problems 3.2-3.9, 3.12, 3.13 B-V Workouts Problems 4.1-4.8 and 4.11-4.12 |
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| Week 3 |
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| Reading
Assignment: Jehle and Reny pages 40-48 Exercises 1.43, 1.46 Jehle and Reny: pages 436-452 Exercises A1.40, A1.42, A1.46, A1.47, A1.48, A1.49 Jehle and Reny pages 460-469, pp 484-494, Exercises A.2.5, A.2.12, A.2.13,A.2.14 Homework: Workouts Problems 4.1-4.8 and 4.11-4.12, Problems 5.1-5.7 Problems 6.1-6.8, 6.12-6.13 |
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| Week 4 | |
| Reading
Assignment: Proof that for differentiable concave functions, tangent line lies above the graph Blume and Simon Chapter 21, Sections 21.1-21.3 Jehle and Reny pp 49-60 Jehle and Reny pp 470-484 Exercises A. 2.9, A.2.19, A.2.20, A.2.24 Work the problems found at this link. |
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| Week 5 | |
| Read
this
article
on Transportation and Apple Quality Charles Wilson's Lecture on Homogeneous and Homothetic functions Simon and Blume Exercise 21.18 Jehle and Reny Exercises 1.53, 1.56, 1.60 Workouts Problems 8.1-8.6, 8.10, 8.11 Notice that unless otherwise stated, these workout problems use the Slutsky rather than the Hicks decomposition of income and substitution effects. The Hicks substitution effect is the change if you get enough "compensating" income to keep you on the original indifference curve. The Slutsky substitution effect is the effect if you get enough "compensating" income so you can just afford your old commodity bundle. Read Jehle and Reny pp 484-509 Jehle and Reny Exercise A2.25, A2.26 |
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| Week 6 |
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| Midterm November 4 No new homework assignment will be made this week |
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| Week 7 | |
| Read Bernoulli on Expected utility (required) and Anscombe and Aumann (optional) Read Jehle and Reny pp 92-112 Homework: Jehle and Reny Problems 2.19, 2.23, 2.24, 2.25 Also do the problems at this link. Workouts Problems Chapter 12, 1-13 Practice problems on gradients and directional derivatives (not to be handed in) |
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| Week 8 | |
| Reading Assignment Jehle and Reny pp 120-123, also read Notes on Separable Preferences Homework: Do problems found in Notes on Separable Preferences Do Workouts Problems Chapter 10, all except problems 6 and 11 Suggested reading: Arrow Chenery Minhas Solow paper on CES production functions Remarks by Arrow on history of ACMS paper |
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| Week 9 | |
| Reading Assignment Jehle and Reny Chapter 3: Notes on elasticity of substitution Homework: Jehle and Reny Problems 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.6, 3.7, 3.9, 3.14, 3.24, 3.26, 3.33, 3.34, 3.42 |