Microeconomics EC2066

This course is designed to equip students with the economic principles which are necessary to analyse a whole range of economic problems.

This course builds on the foundations of economic analysis provided in course EC1002 Introduction to economics.

Prerequisite: A course that you must have ordinarily attempted all elements of before you are permitted to register for another particular course.

If taken as part of a BSc degree, courses which must be attempted before this course may be taken:

This course may not be taken with:

Consumer choice and demand, labour supply
Choice under uncertainty, the expected utility model
Producer theory: production and cost functions, firm and industry supply.
Game theory: normal-form and extensive-form games, Nash equilibrium and subgame perfect equilibrium, repeated games and cooperative equilibria
Market structure: competition, monopoly and oligopoly.
General equilibrium and welfare: competitive equilibrium and efficiency
Pricing in input markets
Inter-temporal choice: savings and investment choices.
The economics of information: moral hazard and adverse selection, resulting market failures and the role of contracts and institutions
Market failures arising from monopoly, externalities and public goods. The role of policy.

If you complete the course successfully, you should

Be able to define and describe:

The determinants of consumer choice, including inter-temporal choice and choice under uncertainty
The behaviour of firms under different market structures
How firms and households determine factor prices
Behaviour of agents in static as well as dynamic strategic situations
The nature of economic interaction under asymmetric information

Be able to analyse and assess:

Efficiency and welfare optimality of perfectly and imperfectly competitive markets
The effects of externalities and public goods on efficiency
The effects of strategic behaviour and asymmetric information on efficiency
The nature of policies and contracts aimed at improving welfare

Be prepared for further units which require a knowledge of microeconomics.

Unseen written exam (3 hrs).

Nicholson and Snyder. Intermediate Microeconomics and its Application, 12th ed 2015, Cengage Learning.

Download the course information sheets from the LSE website.