General

M1 MAEF Individual Decision Making - 4 credits:

• 18 hours of Course (CM) - 12 weeks from September 16 on Wednesday 9:00-10:30, Room 19 - MSE.
• 24 hours of TD - 12 weeks from September 16 on Wednesday 13:00-15:00, Room 116 - MSE.

Course Content

This course deals with individual decision making by producers and consumers. 

• Rational Behavior, Choice, and Market Demand. Consumption set, preferences, properties of preferences, utility representation, properties of utility functions, examples. Budget constraint, utility maximization problem, competitive demand, properties and computation on some examples. Differential characterization of the demand for a differentiable utility function. Choice rules and the weak axiom of revealed preference. Expected utility theory.

• Production and Firm Behavior. Production set, transformation function, production function, examples. Competitive behavior, profit maximization, profit function, supply function, properties. Differential characterization of the supply for a differentiable transformation function. Cost minimization, cost function, demand function, properties. Relationship between profit maximization and cost minimization.

References

• The main reference is the textbook "Microeconomic Theory", Mas-Colell, A., Whinston, M.D., Green, J., Oxford University Press, 1995: Chapters 1-6.
• Bonnisseau, J.-M., del Mercato E., Class Notes: Microeconomis 1, 2023.
• del Mercato, E., Mathematical Appendix, 2026.