Material marked with a ** is assigned reading.
1. Introduction, Overview, and Tools
1.1 Overview of the Course
1.2 Microeconomic Models, Comparative Statics, and Optimization
**Nicholson Chapters 1 and 2.
Card, David, and Krueger, Alan B., “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania,” September 1994,American Economic Review, 84 (4), 772-93.
Card, David, and Krueger, Alan B.,Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum WagePrinceton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
**Freeman, Richard, “Comment: Review Symposium onMyth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage,”Industrial and Labor Relations Review48 (4) July 1995.
**Kennan, John, “The Elusive Effects of Minimum Wages,”Journal of Economic Literature33 (December 1995), 1950-1965.
2. Choice and the Theory of Demand
2.1 Rationality Axioms, Utility, and Indifference Curves; Constrained Utility Maximization
2.2 Individual Demand, Income and Substitution Effects
2.3 Price Indices
2.4 Market Demand, Substitutes and Complements, and Elasticities
**Nicholson Chapters 3-7.
**Boskin, Michael, et al, “Toward a More Accurate Measure of the Cost of Living,” Interim Report to the Senate Finance Committee from the Advisory Commission to Study the Consumer Price Index, September 15, 1995.
**Dwyer, G.P. and C.M. Lindsey, “Robert Giffen and the Irish Potato,”American Economic Review(March 1984): 188-192.
Medoff, Marshall H., “An Economic Analysis of the Demand for Abortions,”Economic Inquiry, April 1988, 26 (2), 353-59.
**Phelps, Charles E., “Death and Taxes: An Opportunity for Substitution,”Journal of Health Economics, March 1988, v7, n1, 1-24.
Smeeding, Timothy, “The Anti-Poverty Effectiveness of In-Kind Transfers,”Journal of Human Resources12, no. 3 (Summer 1977): 365-378.
Assorted newspaper articles.
3. Production and Supply
3.1 Production Functions
3.2 Production Costs and Cost Minimization
3.3 Comparative Statics on Input Prices, Substitutes and Complements, Non-standard Inputs, and Theory of the Firm
3.4 Short and Long Run Costs; Fixed Costs and Sunk Costs
3.5 Profit Maximization, Short and Long Run Supply
3.6 Alternative Models of the Firm
**Nicholson Chapters 11-14.
**Milgrom, Paul, and John Roberts, “The Economics of Modern Manufacturing: Strategy, Structure, and Organizational Change,”American Economic Review1990.
**Milgrom, Paul, and John Roberts,Economics, Organizations, and ManagementPrentice Hall: 1992, Chapter 1.
4. Prices and Perfect Competition
4.1 Partial Equilibrium Price Determination
4.2 Long-Run Equilibrium
4.3 Applied Competitive Analysis
4.5 General Equilibrium
4.6 Economic Efficiency and Welfare
**Nicholson Chapters 8,15-18.
**Fischel, Daniel, and Edward Lazear, “Comparable Worth and Discrimination in Labor Markets,”The University of Chicago Law Review53 (3), Summer, 1986.
**Krugman, Paul, “The Narrow and Broad Arguments for Free Trade,”American Economic Review83 (2), May 1993, 362-66.
**Krugman, Paul, “Competitiveness: A Dangerous Obsession,”Foreign Affairs73 (2), March-April 1994, 28-44.
5. Imperfect Competition and Market Power
5.1 Monopoly Pricing
5.2 Pricing in Imperfectly Competitive Markets
5.3 Strategy and Game Theory
5.4 Entry Deterrence
5.5 Oligopoly and Collusion
**Nicholson Chapters 20-22.
**McAfee, Preston, and Ray Deneckre, “Damaged Goods,”Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, Winter 1995.
*Milgrom, Paul,Auction Theory for Privatization, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming, Chapter 1.
**Schmalensee, Richard, “Entry Deterrence in the Ready-to-Eat Breakfast Cereal Industry,”Bell Journal of Economics, Autumn 1978, 9 (2): 305-27.
6. Choice Under Uncertainty
**Nicholson Chapter 9.
Lave, Lester, “The Value of Better Weather Information to the Raisin Industry,”Econometrica31 (January/April 1963): 151-164.
McCloskey, Don, “The Open Fields of England: Rent, Risk, and the Rate of Interest, 1300-1815,” in D. Galenson, ed.,Markets in History: Economic Studies of the Past(Cambridge University Press, 1989).
7. Limits of the Market
**Nicholson Chapter 26.
*Coase, R., “The Problem of Social Cost,”Journal of Law and Economics3 (October 1960): 1-44.
**Krugman, Paul, “The Tax-Reform Obsession,”New York Times Magazine, ?April 1996?.