PBPL 200000 Microeconomics

Course Objective:

The concepts covered in this introductory course comprise the foundations of microeconomics. Over the course of the quarter, we will consider 9 sets of big questions. Each week, we will cover the theory that underpins these questions and weave in applications as they relate to public policy. The goal of the course is to both arm students with a strong foundation in microeconomics and illuminate areas that students may wish to explore in future special topics courses.

Module (1): How are resources allocated in society? How are prices and quantities set in perfectly competitive markets? Who benefits in a market?

Module (2): How do we know if a market is working? What do economists mean when they talk about efficiency? How do we measure fairness?

Module (3): When can a firm set its own prices? How do firms identify how much each customer will pay? What if a planning committee just set the prices? What if the government made rules about what prices could/should be?

Module (4): How do governments raise revenue, influence behavior, support investment, and transfer resources? When does it make sense for governments to provide goods or services?

Module (5): What happens when someone else’s actions affect my own well-being?

Module (6): How do consumers decide which products to purchase? How does consumer behavior affect market equilibrium?

Module (7): How do firms decide how to organize production? How do we measure profitability? How does firm behavior affect market equilibrium?

Module (8): How are prices and quantities set in uncompetitive markets? What if one firm is the entire market? How do governments regulate uncompetitive markets?

Module (9): What happens in markets where information is not free or not commonly shared? Do the perfect information assumptions that we made all quarter matter? Can a market fail because of information gaps?

Non-text book Readings:

Week 1:

https://www.capitalisnt.com/episodes/has-thinking-like-an-economist-distorted-our-politics/transcript

https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~lebelp/StiglerPerfCompJPE1957.pdf

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1090312774

Week 2:

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jep.27.3.103?version=meter+at+null&module=meter-Links&pgtype=article&contentId=&mediaId=&referrer=&priority=true&action=click&contentCollection=meter-links-click&

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/793488868

Week 3:

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/02/08/1078035048/price-controls-black-markets-and-skimpflation-the-wwii-battle-against-inflation

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-rent-control-doesnt-work/

Week 4: