- Overview and introduction to constrained optimization, equilibrium analysis and comparative
statics analysis
- Introduction to demand curves, supply curves, market equilibrium and elasticity
Hoofdstuk 2: Demand and Supply Analysis
1. Demand, supply and equilibrium
2. Elasticities
3. Back-of-the-envelope calculations
4. The identification problem
5. Market equilibrium: comparative statics
6. Multiple markets: general equilibrium
DEEL 2: CONSUMER THEORY
- Introduction to consumer choice
- Budget lines, utility maximization, analysis of revealed preference
- Comparative statistics of consumer choice and consumer surplus
Hoofstuk 3: Consumer Preferences and the Concept of Utility
1. Consumer preferences
2. Utility functions and indifference curves
3. Quasi-linear utility
4. Critique of the assumption of ‘rational’ behavior
Hoofdstuk 4: Consumer Choice
1. The budget constraint
2. Consumer choice
3. Duality
4. Consumer choice with composite goods
5. Simple applications of consumer choice
6. An application to intertemporal choice: borrowing and lending
7. Dealing with durable goods
8. Revealed preference theory
Hoofdstuk 5: The theory of demand
1. Deriving individual demand functions
2. Effects of price and income changes
, 3. Income and substitution effects
4. Consumer surplus
5. Aggregate demand and network externalities
6. Consumer demand and labour supply
7. The characteristics approach to consumer demand
DEEL 3: PRODUCTION AND COST THEORY
- Production function, marginal and average product, and returns to scale
- Concept of cost, input choice and cost minimization
- Construction of total, average, and marginal cost curves
Hoofdstuk 6: Inputs and Production Functions
1. Production functions
2. Input substitution and isoquants
3. Returns to scale
4. Technological progress
Hoofdstuk 7: Costs and Cost Minimization
1. Definition of costs and profit
2. Long-run input choices and costs
3. Conditional input demand functions
4. Cost functions
5. Short-run costs
6. Extensions
Hoofdstuk 8: Cost Curves
1. Detailed analysis of long-run costs
2. Economies of scale
3. Detailed analysis of short-run costs
4. Relation between short- and long-run costs
5. Extensions: multiple outputs and economies of scope, learning and volume effects,
econometric cost models
DEEL 4: PERFECTLY COMPETITIVE MARKETS
- Profit-maximizing output choice by a price-taking firm and prices in short-run and long-run
equilibrium
- Using the competitive market model to analyze public policy interventions
,Hoofdstuk 9: Perfectly Competitive Markets
1. Competitive markets: characteristics
2. Profit maximizing firms
3. Short-run equilibrium
4. Long-run equilibrium
5. Profit, producer surplus, and economic rent
6. Market efficiency: is perfect competition really that great?
7. Other firm objectives
Hoofdstuk 10: Competitive Markets: Applications
1. Indirect taxes and subsidies
2. Price controls: minimum and maximum prices
3. Tariffs and quotas in international trade
DEEL 5: MONOPOLY AND MONOPSONY
- Theories of monopoly and monopsony price setting
- Price discrimination
Hoofdstuk 11: Monopoly and Monopsony
1. Barriers to entry and monopoly
2. Behavior of the monopolist and the Inverse Elasticity Pricing Rule (IEPR)
3. Implications of monopolistic behavior
4. Pricing in practice: mark-up pricing
5. Multi-plant monopoly
6. The welfare cost of monopoly
7. Monopsony
Hoofdstuk 12: Capturing surplus
1. Introduction
2. First-degree price discrimination
3. Second-degree price discrimination: block tariffs and two-part tariffs
4. Third-degree price discrimination: different prices for different groups of consumers
5. Tying and bundling
6. Advertising
, DEEL 6: IMPERFECTLY COMPETITIVE MARKETS AND STRATEGIC BEHAVIOR
- Price determination in imperfectly competitive markets
- Simultaneous- move games and sequential move games
Hoofdstuk 13: Market Structure And Competition
1. Introduction: market structures
2. Oligopoly with homogeneous products
3. Dominant firm markets
4. Oligopoly with horizontally differentiated products
5. Monopolistic competition
Hoofdstuk 14: Game Theory and Strategic Behavior
1. Simultaneous-move one-shot games
a. Concepts: Nash equilibrium, dominant strategies, dominated strategies, mixed
strategies
2. Repeated simultaneous-move games
a. How to achieve cooperation?
3. Sequential-move games
a. Strategic moves
b. The value of commitment