Advanced Topics in Microeconomics

Stručná osnova predmetu

Indicative content:
1.
Preferences, utility, consumer choice, Slutsky/Hicks effects, deviations from the model of standard rational choice considering the behavioral approach, limited rationality.
2.
Producer Theory: Technology, the individual firm and Production, Costs, Firm Supply. Market equilibrium with a Perfectly Competitive Firm.
3.
Imperfect competition: Markets of Monopoly and Monopolistic Competition, what creates monopolies, pricing strategies of monopoly (price discrimination), regulating monopolies.
4.
Equilibrium and Efficiency: Partial Equilibrium Competitive analysis – _Pareto Optimality and Welfare analysis, General Equilibrium analysis - Fundamental welfare theorems, General vs partial equilibrium theory.
5.
Strategic behavior: Oligopoly, the Stackelberg model, and Cournot equilibrium. Game theory: Solving strategic form games (Nash equilibrium), repeated games, sequential games, dominant strategies, games with incomplete information.
6.
Externalities and Public Goods: Failures of market equilibria to yield Pareto efficiency, the Coase Theorem, the Tragedy of the Commons, Open-access and Public Goods.
7.
Information Technology (IT): Markets of Information goods and Network products. Main characteristics of these markets (complementarity- switching costs-economies of scale- externalities). The role of Digital Economy and the new technological advancements in shaping production and consumption patterns (Industry 4.0).
8.
Information asymmetries, contract design problem of principal-agent, an adverse selection problem, a moral hazard problem.