901 - PRICE THEORY (Maloney)
(See commentary at end)
INTRODUCTORY MATERIAL
1. Introduction
- Comparative Statics of Single Market Equilibrium
- Profit Maximization
- Bi-Market Equilibria: Competitive and Monopoly Case
2. Multivariate Optimizing Behavior
- Profit Maximization in the Choice of Inputs
3. Unconstrained Maximization: Third Degree Price Discrimination
4. Constrained Maximization: Bees, Apples, and Honey
THE THEORY OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
5. Experimenting to Demonstrate the Law Of Demand
- The Primal: Utility Maximization
- Ordinary and Compensated Demand Curves
- Slutsky Equation
6. Experimental Test of the Giffen Good
7. The Dual: Expenditure Minimization
8. The Complete Empirical Implications of the Theory of Consumer Behavior
- Slutsky Equation in Elasticities Form
- Cross Price Effects
- Homogeneity
- Budget Constraint
- Budget Shares
9. Demand Estimation Using Chinese Household Expenditures
10. On the Question of Separability and the Labor-Leisure Model
11. Consumer’s Surplus
- Consumer’s Surplus and Price Indices
- Compensating and Equivalent Variations
- Consumer Surplus and All-or-Nothing Demand
12. Market Feedback Effects
13. The Theory of Time
14. Queuing Lines and Lists: Barzel, Lindsay & Feigenbaum
15. Price Gouging and Price Stabilization: The Oi-Samuelson Debate
THE THEORY OF PRODUCTION
16. The Cost Minimization Model and the Structure of Costs
17. The Structure of Costs and the Competitive Equilibrium
- Quotas, Input Restrictions, and Input Price Changes
18. Per-unit Taxes versus Business Licenses
19. Cobb-Douglas Cost Functions
20. Input Demand Curves in Competitive Equilibrium
21. Competitive Equilibrium Input Demand
- The Slope of Industry Demand
- A Note on Elasticity of Substitution
- Inputs as Substitutes and Complements
- Long-Run Industry Supply
- Marshall’s Last Law
- CES Production Functions
22. Transcendental Logarithmic Cost Function
23. Odds And Ends (duplicate stuff; skip)
- Cobb-Douglas Production & Profit Maximization1
- The Comparative Statics of 3rd Degree Price Discrimination
- Cournot Model of Oligopoly Industry Equilibrium
24. The Taussig & Pigou Controversy
- Introduction to Joint Costs, Common Costs, Joint Production
25. The Optimal Supply of Public Goods
- Private Production of Public Goods
26. The Taussig & Pigou Controversy and Ramsey Pricing
27. The Coase Theorem and Other Multimarket Equilibria
SPECIAL TOPICS
28. Rank Order Tournaments - Lazear & Rosen
29. Discounting Problems
30. Optimal Control Theory
31. Learning Curves and Cost: An Application of Optimal Control
32. Ramsey Pricing (moved to lecture 26)
33. General Equilibrium & Pareto Efficiency
Notes:
Most but not all of these lecture notes represent a full class session. However,
some as they have evolved are larger or smaller. Still you get a sense of the material
covered.
I don't think that I have gotten to lecture 33 in ten years. Lecture 23 is junk pared
out of other lectures. I don't do this one in class. Lecture 32 has be moved into 26, and I
haven't cleaned up the numbering yet.
Subject to discussion this summer, my plan for the fall was to skip the first four
lectures. These are in part a throw back to earlier days when the math skills of our
students were less developed. The part of lecture 1 on bi-market equilibrium and the
comparative statics of third degree price discrimination in lecture 3 would be done after
lecture 27. These are lost on the students in the first weeks of class.
Optimal control in lectures 30 and 31 needs to be retooled to correspond with the
way Tamura does this stuff. There is a complete disconnect for even the best students
here and there shouldn’t be. While both of my lectures are directed at specific problems
(optimal ground water extraction and learning curves) I think that the math can be better
tailored to mirror the way Robert (and Scott?) do these things.
Oi's two-part pricing is on the reading list, and I have lectured on it in the past, but
it has slipped away. I plan on doing a lecture on it this fall.