21210235 - Advanced Microeconomics

Il corso tratta alcuni dei temi classici della microeconomia ad un livello di master. Gli argomenti includono la teoria del consumatore e della produzione, le scelte in condizioni di incertezza (decisioni di portafoglio e assicurative), l'aggregazione, lo scambio di merci e di attività finanziarie, l'equilibrio economico generale (esistenza e proprietà del benessere). L’obiettivo principale del corso è quello di fornire agli studenti quelle nozioni e metodologie necessarie per proseguire con successo i loro studi in un programma di dottorato, o intraprendere una carriera di lavoro come economisti nel settore privato o in un'istituzione pubblica.

Curriculum

scheda docente | materiale didattico

Programma

Part 1: Consumer and production theory
1.1 Consumer theory: Classical demand theory (budget constraint, preferences, utility, consumption demand, indirect utility, expenditure function, welfare evaluation, equivalent and compensating variation, axioms of revealed preferences).
1.2 Production theory: Production sets. Profit maximization and cost minimization. The geometry of costs.

Part 2: Choice under uncertainty
2.1 Theory: Lotteries. Preferences over lotteries. Expected Utility Theory (EUT). Money lotteries and risk aversion. Comparison of payoff distributions in terms of returns and risk. Subjective probabilities. Some criticisms to EUT.
2.2 Applications: insurance and portfolio choice.

Part 3: Aggregation
3.1 Demand aggregation.
3.2 Supply aggregation.
3.3 On the existence of a "representative agent".

Part 4: General competitive equilibrium and its welfare properties
4.1 Simple economies: the Edgworth box, 1 producer \& 1 consumer economy, 2X2 economy.
4.2 Pareto optimality and social welfare optima: feasibility, Pareto optimal problem, welfare function, Pareto frontier.

Part 5: Possible additional topics
5.1 The positive theory of equilibrium Existence, uniqueness.
5.2 Competitive equilibrium under uncertainty: Markets for contingent commodities. Arrow-Debreu equilibrium. Markets for assets and insurance policies. Back to welfare properties of competitive equilibria. Sequential trade and incomplete markets.
5.3 Basic principles of financial economics: The fundamental theorem of asset pricing. Mean-variance analysis.


Testi Adottati

A. Mas-Colell, M.D. Whinston and J.R. Green, Microeconomic Theory, Oxford University Press, 1995
H. Varian, Microeconomic Analysis, WW Norton and co. New York, III edition.

Modalità Erogazione

Lezioni frontali

Modalità Frequenza

Tre lezioni settimanali durante il semestre accademico

Modalità Valutazione

Esame finale in aula (senza l'ausilio di appunti e manuali)

scheda docente | materiale didattico

Programma

Part 1: Consumer and production theory
1.1 Consumer theory: Classical demand theory (budget constraint, preferences, utility, consumption demand, indirect utility, expenditure function, welfare evaluation, equivalent and compensating variation, axioms of revealed preferences).
1.2 Production theory: Production sets. Profit maximization and cost minimization. The geometry of costs.

Part 2: Choice under uncertainty
2.1 Theory: Lotteries. Preferences over lotteries. Expected Utility Theory (EUT). Money lotteries and risk aversion. Comparison of payoff distributions in terms of returns and risk. Subjective probabilities. Some criticisms to EUT.
2.2 Applications: insurance and portfolio choice.

Part 3: Aggregation
3.1 Demand aggregation.
3.2 Supply aggregation.
3.3 On the existence of a "representative agent".

Part 4: General competitive equilibrium and its welfare properties
4.1 Simple economies: the Edgworth box, 1 producer \& 1 consumer economy, 2X2 economy.
4.2 Pareto optimality and social welfare optima: feasibility, Pareto optimal problem, welfare function, Pareto frontier.

Part 5: Possible additional topics
5.1 The positive theory of equilibrium Existence, uniqueness.
5.2 Competitive equilibrium under uncertainty: Markets for contingent commodities. Arrow-Debreu equilibrium. Markets for assets and insurance policies. Back to welfare properties of competitive equilibria. Sequential trade and incomplete markets.
5.3 Basic principles of financial economics: The fundamental theorem of asset pricing. Mean-variance analysis.


Testi Adottati

A. Mas-Colell, M.D. Whinston and J.R. Green, Microeconomic Theory, Oxford University Press, 1995
H. Varian, Microeconomic Analysis, WW Norton and co. New York, III edition.

Modalità Erogazione

Lezioni frontali

Modalità Frequenza

Tre lezioni settimanali durante il semestre accademico

Modalità Valutazione

Esame finale in aula (senza l'ausilio di appunti e manuali)