Master course: Advanced Microeconomics

Here you find all important information and course material for the module "Advanced Microeconomics". It is a mandatory class for Master students M.Sc. Economics.

Modulanmeldung Winter 2024/2025

Die Online-Moduleinschreibung für das Wintersemester 2024/2025 erfolgt über “TOOL” (Di, 01.10.2024 bis Di, 08.10.2024). Ab Mo, 14.10.2024, 9 Uhr Anmeldung über das Nachrückerportal: https://frzverwaltung.wifa.uni-leipzig.de/NRV

Organization 2024/2025:

In the winter term 2024/2025, Advanced Microeconomics will be taught in a hybrid format. Voice has been added to the slides (available on moodle). The slides below are without voice, the slides on moodle are the same (with a very few corrections added), but with voice added. You do not need a password to enroll in the course.

You are all expected to go through the voiced slides before the flipped classroom meetings. We will meet two times every week (not three times) and this meeting time will be spent on especially difficult material and on exercises. Therefore, catching up on bachelor-level microeconomics (see „Preparation” below) is even more important in the upcoming semester than in previous years. 

We meet on Mondays, 11:15, and on Wednesdays, 09:15.

Preparation

Before the classes start, you may want to

  • work through the textbook on bachelor-level microeconomics by Harald Wiese (Mikroökonomik - Eine Einführung, Springer, 2010, 5. ed.) and/or through similar (English!) textbooks such as Varian (Intermediate Microeconomics), Perloff (Microeconomics), Schotter (Microeconomics) or Frank (Microeconomics and Behavior),
  • solve the exercises and past tests of bachelor-level microeconomics, and
  • consult the lecturer Mr. Singer. (Email)
  • Also, before the classes start, you will have worked through a few, if not all, chapters on moodle.
  • In addition, you may want to work through the slides of the former lecture „Intermediate Microeconomics” (bachelor level).

1st Session: Budget; preferences 

2nd Session: Household optimum; comparative statics; labour supply and savings 

3rd Session: Production theory; costs; profit maximization 

4th Session: Market demand; perfect competitive markets; first welfare theorem 

5th Session: Compensating and equivalent variation; consumer and producer surplus; monopoly 

6th Session: Game theory; oligopoly 

Literature

The lecture is based on the book WIESE: Advanced Microeconomics (Springer Gabler, 2021) (chapter XVI is not covered in the course) but sometimes presentation in class and on the slides below is somewhat simpler than in the book. The ebook is accessible via the VPN connection of Leipzig University. The textbook by Geoffrey Jehle and Philip Reny (Advanced Microeconomic Theory) provides supplementary reading on a similar level. If you have any questions, please, do not hesitate to address the assistants anytime.

Topics and slides (voiced slides available on moodle)

In brackets you find a more printer friendly version with a plain layout

Part A:     Basic decision and preference theory

Part B:      Household theory and theory of the firm

Part C:     Games and industrial organization

 Part D:     Bargaining theory and Pareto optimality

Part E:     Bayesian games and mechanism design

 Part F:     Perfect competition and competition policy

Part G:     Contracts and principal-agent theories