Topic outline

  • General

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    Elena del Mercato (Elena.delMercato@univ-paris1.fr)
    Webpage: http://www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/en/del-mercato-elena/

    Course in English - First Semester 2024/2025

    M1 MAEF Microeconomics 1A: Individual Decision Making - 4 credits:

    • 18 hours of Course from September 18 to November 20, 2024: every Wednesday 13:00-15:00 - MSE - Room 115.
    • 24 hours of TD from September 16 to November 18, 2024 - Two days per week: every Monday 14:00-15:30 - MSE - Room 116, and every Wednesday 9:00-10:30 - MSE - Room 115

    M1 IMMAEF Microeconomics 1 - 7 credits:

    • Course from September 18 to December 11, 2024: every Wednesday 13:00-15:00 - MSE - Room 115.
    • TD from September 16 to December 2, 2024 - Two days per week: every Monday 14:00-15:30 - MSE - Room 116, and every Wednesday 9:00-10:30 - MSE - Room 115.

    MIDTERM EXAM - M1 MAEF & IMMAEF : Wednesday, November 13, from 9:00 to 10:30 - MSE, Room 115.

    FINAL EXAM - M1 MAEF & IMMAEF :
    Wednesday, JANUARY 22, from 14:00 to 16:00 - MSE, Room 117.

    The exercices to be solved in week "n+1" are available in the folder below "FEUILLES DE TD" in week "n" immediately after the course on Wednesday.

  • General Presentation

    The course Microeconomics 1A deals with individual decision making by producers and consumers. The rest of the course Microeconomics 1 deals with competitive equilibria and Pareto optimal allocations in pure exchange economies and in production economies.

    Course Content

    MAEF Microeconomics 1A: Individual Decision Making

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


    IMMAEF Microeconomics 1

    As for the content of the first part of this course, see Microeconomics 1A: Individual Decision Making. The content of the rest of the course Microeconomics 1 is given below.

    Equilibria & Optimality

    • Pure exchange: the Edgeworth box. Definitions of competitive equilibrium and Pareto optimality in the Edgeworth box. Computation and geometric characterization of equilibria and Pareto optima in the Edgeworth box.
    • Production economies. Private ownership economies, definition of competitive equilibrium. Basic properties: Walras’s Law and price normalization. Computation of competitive equilibria. Notions of feasible allocations and Pareto optimal allocations in a production economy. Pareto optimality conditions in terms of marginal rates of substitution and marginal rates of transformation. First and Second theorems of welfare economics.

    References

    • Mas-Colell, A., Whinston, M.D., Green, J., (MWG) Microeconomic Theory, Oxford University Press, 1995. Chapters 1-6, 10 and 15-16.
    • Bonnisseau, J.-M., del Mercato E., Class Notes: Microeconomis 1, 2020.
    • del Mercato, E., Mathematical Appendix for Economics, 2020.

  • Class Notes and Problem Sets (TDs)