Class material
Course schedule
Course description
Background reading ("required" in bold):
Dekel and Lipman (2010) How (not) to do decision theory, Annual Review of Economics
Morgenstern (1972) Thirteen critical points in contemporary economic theory: an interpretation, Journal of Economic Literature
Gabaix and Laibson (2008) The seven properties of good models, The methodologies of modern economics: foundations of positive and normative economics
Card, DellaVigna and Malmendier (2011) The role of theory in field experiments, Journal of Economic Perspectives
Descriptive
Miguel and Kremer (2004) Works: identifying impacts on education and health in the presence of treatment externalities, Econometrica
Single model
Nagin et al. (2002) Monitoring, motivation and management: the determinants of opportunistic behavior in a field experiment, American Economic Review
Competing models
Ferh and Goette (2007) Do workers work more if wages are high? Evidence from a randomized field experiment, American Economic Review
Parameter estimation
Tood and Wolpin (2006) Assessing the impact of a school subsidy program in Mexico: using a social experiment to validate a dynamic behavioral model of child schooling and fertility, American Economic Review
Instructor: Øyvind Aas (Universite libré de Bruxelles and Kristiania University College)
Course description
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
Banerjee, A., Chandrasekhar, A., Duflo, E. and Jackson, M. (2019) Using gossips to spread information: theory and evidence from two randomized controlled trials, Review of Economic Studies, 86(6): 2453 – 2490.
They want to understand how information on two topics, “a lottery to win a cellphone” and “immunization camps”, spreads in two villages in India (i.e., network theory, RCT 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 or applied/pure theory.
Structure
• Discussion (20%): Every week we discuss ca. 2 to 4 papers (2x45 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. The students lead the discussion.
• 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 own 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 December 7, 2020. (The deadline for an FNRS phd grant is in the end of February. Hence, you can get comments before you submit.)
Time and location
Wednesday 10.30 - 12.00, Zoom (to be distributed)
October 7 - December 9 (10 sessions in total, 2x 45 min)