Background reading ("required" in bold):
Graduate microeconomics 3 is a reading group in microeconomic theory. The course aims to teach participants how to think about research in microeconomic theory.
Target audience
You work or want to work on theory for your research. Especially welcome are our colleagues whose work is empirical but want to formalize a mechanism for the relations you study.
Example
They want to understand how information on a loan system spreads in several villages in India (i.e., network theory and data on village networks)
Eligible students
Students in the research master or phd students.
Please send me an email if you want to attend, audit the course, or have any questions about the fit of the course with your research. Then we can start planning the reading list, discuss papers to be included and the final structure.
Reading list
Whatever you want to work on, as long as it has a microeconomic theory component. For example: applied theory for an empirical paper and applied or pure theory.
Structure
· Discussion (20%): Every week we discuss 3 papers (3x30 min): motivation, insight, contribution/novelty and importance (no first-order conditions). Then we discuss what the paper lacks or what the natural next directions for research are. I lead the discussion for one paper each week and two students lead the discussion on the other two papers.
· Referee report (20%): Halfway in the course you write a referee report on a paper you chose. This report is to further understand the state of the art in your field to improve your paper’s contribution.
· FNRS grant proposal (60%): The final evaluation is to write a four page grant proposal (including references) on goal of research, state of the art, methodology, preliminary results and contribution. Deadline: 9am on December 10. (The deadline for an FNRS phd grant is end of February. So you can get comments before you submit.)
Location, time and duration
Wednesday 10.30 - 12.00, R42 5.116-117 “Large Winch”
September 19 - December 12 (11/12 sessions in total)
Ideal class size: 8-12 students.