Department of Economics UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

Econ304 - Honours Microeconomics

Announcements

• The ta's name is David Freeman.

Course Contents

Course Outline
To prepare for the course, make sure you understand the mathematics that is described in the Math Tutorial below. We will begin with the reading on Preference Theory, which you can read if you follow the link below.

If you want to brush up on ideas from first year economics you can use Preston McAfee's textbook. A variety of other second year teaching resources are available at http://www.economics.ltsn.ac.uk/teaching/text/intermediatemicroeconomics.htm.

1. Math Preparation
   • This link leads to a math tutorial written by Martin Osborne at U of Toronto. It contains most of what you will need to know about math as an economics student. Browse through to refresh your knowledge, then go back to it when you encounter a mathematical concept that you don't understand. Martin Osborne's Tutorial.
2. Introductory Material and the Theory of Choice
   • Introductory Reading - Preference Theory - You should make sure you can do all the questions associated with Preference Theory (the file is at the bottom of this list). Questions 12, 13,14 and 17 will be discussed in tutorial.
   • Here is a note on constrained optimization giving the Lagrange theorem described in class.
3. Choice Theory
   • Demand Theory and Comparative Statics
   • Discontinuous Budget Sets
   • Best Reply Behavior
4. Applications of Choice Theory
   • Expected Utility Theorem.
   • Reading on Risk Aversion
   • Insurance Theory
5. Collective Choice and Equilibrium
   • Reading on Walrasian Equilibrium and the First Welfare Theorem
   • Reading on Public Goods
   • Music Downloading
6. Problem Sets