Syllabus for
Economics 604(second half)
Daniel R. Vincent: Spring
2024
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Official Matters
Economics 604(B) is the second half of the second course in Economics Department's two-semester core sequence in Microeconomics. This course is taken by all first-year Economics Ph.D. students, as well as by quite a few Ph.D. students in Agricultural & Resource Economics, the Smith School of Business, and other academic departments. This course covers decisions under uncertainty, expected utility theory, and economics with private information including mechanism design, adverse selection and moral hazard.
All official course announcements will be posted on the course site on ELMS. Other material will likely be available there as well as via links from this syllabus. Zoom links (if any) will be set up via the ELMS site as well.
Note: Our first meeting will be Tuesday, March 26 and we will meet every Tuesday and Thursday thereafter until the final day of classes, May 9. The class is scheduled for 2:00pm-3:15pm and typically I will lecture in person and record the lecture as well (if the technology allows and if I remember). However, there may be lectures that I will simply record ahead of time for students to download.
Course Material
Problem sets, and old tests (where available) will be posted on a password-protected area:
http://econweb.umd.edu/~vincent/econ604/ps.html
http://econweb.umd.edu/~vincent/econ604/test.html
The login and password for the restricted area will be announced in class.
Grading
The course grade will be determined by the performance on one midterm (40%) and one final exam (60%).
There will be about 5 ungraded problem sets for the second half of the course. For your reference, all of the problem sets from last year are currently posted on the password-protected web page, but some of these may be updated, and you should refer to the most recent version at the time of doing the problem sets.
The midterm will be open book and open note. It is currently scheduled for Tuesday, April 23.
The final exam will be closed book and is set according to the University exam schedule. Any students having any known conflicts with the exam time should notify the professor immediately.
I believe the final exam is scheduled for Wednesday, May 15, 10:30. It will be in person and likely only 1 hour and 15 minutes as it will cover mainly the last half of the course. This may be subject to change by the Registrar. Please check Testudo for confirmation.
Texts
A. Mas-Colell, M. Whinston and J. Green (henceforth MWG), Microeconomic Theory, Oxford Univ. Press, 1995.
Course Times
Section
0101: Tuesdays/Thursdays 2:00 pm - 3:15 pm, TYD 2109.
Discussion
Section:
Tuesdays, 5:15-6:45, TYD 2106.
Teaching Assistant, Ruibing Su: mailto: RS
Office Hours: Friday, 4-5, TYD 4128.
Office
Hours
Professor
Vincent’s
Office Hours: Thursdays, 3:15-4:15pm, Tydings 4130B.
Topics
for
Second Half of Course (approximately one week per topic)
1. Decision
Under Uncertainty: Expected Utility, I and II.
MWG, Chapter 6A
and 6B.
http://econweb.umd.edu/~vincent/econ604/leceu1.pdf
http://econweb.umd.edu/~vincent/econ604/leceu2.pdf
2. Decision Under
Uncertainty: Attitudes Toward Risk, I through IV.
MWG, Chapter 6C and
6D.
http://econweb.umd.edu/~vincent/econ604/Lecture3RA1HO.pdf
http://econweb.umd.edu/~vincent/econ604/Lecture4RA2HO.pdf
http://econweb.umd.edu/~vincent/econ604/Lecture5RA3HO.pdf
http://econweb.umd.edu/~vincent/econ604/Lecture6RA4HO.pdf
3. Decision Under Uncertainty: The Value of Information.
MWG, Chapter 19H.
http://econweb.umd.edu/~vincent/econ604/Lecture7InfoHO.pdf
4.
Implementation: The Mechanism Design Approach
MWG Chapter 23E-F.
http://econweb.umd.edu/~vincent/econ604/lecmd1.pdf
5. Adverse
Selection Problems
MWG Chapter 14C, 13.
6. Moral Hazard
(Principal Agent) Problems.
MWG Chapter 14B.