EC4101: Microeconomic Analysis III
AY2014/2015, Semester 2, Lecturer: Indranil Chakraborty, Ko Chiu Yu
Course Coverage:
1. Uncertainty
2. Adverse Selection
3. Moral Hazard
4. Auctions
5. Static Games of Complete Information
6. Dynamic Games of Complete Information
7. Multi-Stage & Repeated Games
8. Signaling Games
9. Matching Markets
This advanced course in microeconomics build upon the foundation from EC2101 and EC3101. The first half deals with information economics and auctions while the second part covers game theory and matching markets. While information economics, uncertainty, and game theory, are often included in the syllabus, auctions may not be offered every semester. E.g. Dr. Ko Chiu Yu covered matching markets, A/P Chen Yi-Chun teaches general equilibrium, A/P Lu Jingfeng offers contract theory, and Prof. Satoru Takahashi class will ALWAYS be challenging regardless of the topic.
The module begins with a review on utility under uncertainty, then move on to asymmetric information problems. Adverse selection is the situation whereby a producer has to choose an optimal level of production given that the producer without being able to identify the different types of customers. In this case, consumers are different in their demand curve. The moral hazard problem is usually modeled as a principal-agent relationship, where the agents take actions unknown to the principal to determine the principal's payoff.
The last topic in the first half introduces various types of auctions, for example: open ascending price (English) auction, open descending price (Dutch) auction, first-price sealed-bid (blind) auction, second-price sealed-bid (Vickrey) auction. In this course, the module covered strategies in independent private value auctions under blind and Vickrey mechanisms, common value auctions under the English mechanism.
The second half covers game theory in a theoretical manner that is similar to EC3312. However, the emphasis lies more with computations than analysis in this module. The last topic introduces the matching markets and covers matching algorithms for two-sided markets and one-sided markets.
This module highlights the more advanced microeconomic problems and is 100% quantitative in nature. It is recommended to take EC3312 and/or EC3322 before taking this module. For this semester, the first half, auctions in particular, is considerably harder than the second half of the module. However, from personal experience, it is worthy to note that numerical mistakes in the second half can have dire consequences, i.e. missing out more than half of the equilibria.
Workload: Moderate
Difficulty: Difficult
Grade: A-
Course Coverage:
1. Uncertainty
2. Adverse Selection
3. Moral Hazard
4. Auctions
5. Static Games of Complete Information
6. Dynamic Games of Complete Information
7. Multi-Stage & Repeated Games
8. Signaling Games
9. Matching Markets
This advanced course in microeconomics build upon the foundation from EC2101 and EC3101. The first half deals with information economics and auctions while the second part covers game theory and matching markets. While information economics, uncertainty, and game theory, are often included in the syllabus, auctions may not be offered every semester. E.g. Dr. Ko Chiu Yu covered matching markets, A/P Chen Yi-Chun teaches general equilibrium, A/P Lu Jingfeng offers contract theory, and Prof. Satoru Takahashi class will ALWAYS be challenging regardless of the topic.
The module begins with a review on utility under uncertainty, then move on to asymmetric information problems. Adverse selection is the situation whereby a producer has to choose an optimal level of production given that the producer without being able to identify the different types of customers. In this case, consumers are different in their demand curve. The moral hazard problem is usually modeled as a principal-agent relationship, where the agents take actions unknown to the principal to determine the principal's payoff.
The last topic in the first half introduces various types of auctions, for example: open ascending price (English) auction, open descending price (Dutch) auction, first-price sealed-bid (blind) auction, second-price sealed-bid (Vickrey) auction. In this course, the module covered strategies in independent private value auctions under blind and Vickrey mechanisms, common value auctions under the English mechanism.
The second half covers game theory in a theoretical manner that is similar to EC3312. However, the emphasis lies more with computations than analysis in this module. The last topic introduces the matching markets and covers matching algorithms for two-sided markets and one-sided markets.
This module highlights the more advanced microeconomic problems and is 100% quantitative in nature. It is recommended to take EC3312 and/or EC3322 before taking this module. For this semester, the first half, auctions in particular, is considerably harder than the second half of the module. However, from personal experience, it is worthy to note that numerical mistakes in the second half can have dire consequences, i.e. missing out more than half of the equilibria.
Workload: Moderate
Difficulty: Difficult
Grade: A-