EC 703 — Advanced Microeconomic Theory
Bart Lipman
270 Bay State Road, Office 558
617–353–2995
blipman@bu.edu
http://people.bu.edu/blipman/
Spring 2015
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Requirements
Your grade will be based on weekly problem sets, a midterm exam, and a final exam.
The problems will count for 20% and each exam 40%.
The midterm exam will be in class, Monday February 29. The University has not
posted the final exam schedule yet, so I don’t know when it will be.
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Homework
The regular schedule for problem sets will be as follows. Problem sets will be posted on
my web page (not Blackboard) each week on Thursday or Friday. Your answers are to
be turned in to Yi-Hsuan in his mailbox in room 426 by noon on Friday of the following
week. He will grade them and return them to you in the discussion section the following
Tuesday. The first problem set will be posted around January 21 or 22 and will be due on
January 29. There will be no discussion section on January 19 or 26, so the first section
will be February 2.
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Text
The only required text is
Mas–Colell, Whinston, and Green, Microeconomic Theory, Oxford.
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Office Hours
My office hours will shift at spring break. Before spring break, from January 21 through
March 3, my regular office hours will be Wednesdays 11 to 12:30 and Thursdays 2 to 3:30.
After spring break, from March 16 through April 28, my office hours will be Wednesdays
11 to 12:30 and Thursdays 9:30 to 11.
My office hours are subject to change, with all changes announced in advance in class.
Also, of course, I will be available at other times by appointment.
Yi-Hsuan will have office hours Tuesdays 2 to 3:30 in B17C.
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Course Outline and Readings
All dates below are approximate. Some topics may be added or dropped.
January 20. Introduction to Game Theory. Chapter 7.
January 25 to February 3. Normal Form Games. Chapter 8.
February 8 to February 24. Extensive Form Games. Chapter 9.
February 29. Midterm exam.
March 2 to March 16. Adverse Selection. Chapter 13, Sections A and B.
March 21 to March 28. Signaling. Chapter 13, Sections C and AA.
March 30 to April 11. Principal–Agent Problems. Chapter 14, Sections A–C.
April 13 to April 27. Mechanism Design. Chapter 23, Sections A–E.
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