65-001 Microeconomics 3
second cycle Master degree study programme Economics and Finance
Course Supervisor: Prof. Žiga Čepar, Assoc. Prof. Aljaž Ule
Content
- Consumer behaviour (preferences, utility, duality in consumer theory, relationship between demand, indirect utility function and the function of expenses, consumer surplus, applied models for consumer choice including two-period model of intertemporal choice, aggregation problem – from individual choice to aggregate demand ).
- Producer behaviour (production function - industrial set, and the set of necessary factors of production - restoring production function on the demand for production factors - the objective of profit maximization and the properties of the profit function, the problem of costs minimization and property of costs function, entry and exit of the company in the short and long term, impact analysis of the introduction of various types of taxes (subsidies) on the company behaviour).
- Market competition and mark equilibrium (Pareto efficiency (optimality), distribution of the tax burden between consumers and producers, comparative statics analysis, comparative analysis of the methods of state regulation).
- International trade (neoclassical theory, Ricardo model / Dornbusch – Fischer – Samuelson model / Heckscher – Ohlin – Samuelson model, Rybczynski theorem / Heckscher – Ohlin theorem / Stolper – Samuelson theorem, empirical verification of models and theorems, new trade theory – impact of economies of scale and imperfect competition).
- Monopoly (types of monopoly, social welfare, state regulation, taxes and subsidies, discrimination and segmentation, pricing).
- Oligopoly (strategic interaction between companies, Cournot model, solution of the problem for the case of N symmetric firms, inefficiency of oligopoly, price strategy, Bertrand model, Stackelberg model, formation of cartels, comparative analysis of oligopoly models).
- Market failure, public goods and externalities, asymmetric information (imperfect allocation of resources, Samuelson equation, Lindahl equilibrium, Coase theorem, Pigou tax on emission, asymmetric information – case from insurance industry).
- Choice under uncertainty (paradoxes of choice under uncertainty and their
possible, examples of strategic choices under conditions of uncertainty, the
demand for insurance and the demand for risky assets and risk-free assets,
choosing the optimal investment portfolio).