Economics 11 Microeconomic Theory I Fall 2016 Professor: Maurizio Mazzocco Office: 8377 Bunche Hall E-mail: [email protected] Office Hours: Wednesday 4pm-5pm Lecture: Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 9:30am to 10:45am. Building: Moore 100. Class Website: https://moodle2.sscnet.ucla.edu/course/view/16F-ECON11-1?section=0. Check this site regularly. Announcements, problem sets, additional readings, and other useful items will be posted there. It also includes: a copy of this syllabus; practice exams; TA office hours, email addresses, and phone numbers. Textbook: Walter Nicholson, Microeconomic Theory: Basic Principles and Extensions, 11th Edition. The 10th Edition is also fine. You can also buy older editions. In this case you are responsible for finding the material covered in class. Prerequisites: Economics 1 and 2, one course from Mathematics 31B, 31BH, 31E, 32A, laws of demand, supply, returns, and costs; price and output determination in different market situations. Course Description: The intent of this course is to provide a rigorous presentation of microeconomics, the branch of economics dealing with behavior of individual decision makers such as consumers and firms. The goal of the course is for students to learn to think rigorously on their own about how economic agents make choices and the implications of these choices. Lectures focus on presentation of analytical tools which form the basis for such thinking. Problem sets provide students with practice applying these tools. Students will be evaluated on their understanding of these tools and their ability to apply them to new problems. It is important to remember that this is a course on economic methodology, not on policy. A lot of what you learn here will be applied later in other economics and business courses you will take. For economics major, this course is likely to be the most important one you will take. Course Requirements: Students are expected to attend lectures as well as weekly discussion sessions with a teaching assistant. We will follow the text as much as we can. However, not all material in the chapters of the text we cover will be presented in lectures. Problem sets will be assigned approximately once per week, and will be graded, primarily for completeness. Late homework will not be accepted for any reason, although each student’s lowest homework grade will be dropped. Problem sets are designed to enablestudents to become proficient using the concepts and analytical methods presented in the lectures and readings. Students may collaborate on problem sets, although each must submit her/his own answers in her/his own words. Work the problem sets! While these account for only 10% of the final grade, they provide excellent practice for the exams. Students who do not work these problems should expect to do poorly on the exams. Discussion Sections: Each student is assigned to a weekly discussion section with a teaching assistant. All teaching assistants for this course are Ph.D. students in economics. Discussion sections will usually focus on the problem set assigned the previous week. TAs will often review material covered in the lectures that week and will sometimes present new material. If you have a question you can bring it up in the session. Exams: There will be two midterms held during regular class periods and one cumulative final exam. Midterm exams will be given in class on October 25 and November 17. These are the only times these exams will be offered; i.e. there are no makeup midterms (see Grading below). A cumulative final exam will be given on Thursday, December 8, 2016, from 11:30am to 2:30pm. This schedule cannot be changed, and alternative exam times will not be offered, so please resolve any conflicts now! Practice exams are provided on the web site. They give a good indication of the style and level of questions likely to be on the exams you will be given. Exams require students to solve new problems using the analytical tools developed in class. They are intended to be challenging! Grading: All exam scores will be graded to comparable 100-point scales. Homework will count 10% of the final grade. One of two different rules will be used to determine the remaining 90%. [1] For students whose final exam score is below the scores on each of the two midterms, each exam will count 30%. [2] For all other students, the final exam will count 50% and the higher of the two midterms will count 40% (i.e., the lower midterm score is dropped). For any student missing one of the midterms for any reason, the latter calculation will be used with the one midterm taken counting 40%. This grading scheme is designed to (1) give students an opportunity to improve their grades if they do poorly on the first midterm, (2) ensure that a consistent and fair policy is applied in the unusual case that a student must miss a midterm, and (3) avoid heavy weight on a single poor exam performance. Questions about Grading: We try very hard to grade fairly and consistently. Mistakes in grading are unusual but sometimes do occur. When they do, we want to correct them. Questions about grading should be directed first to your TA. Most questions are resolved easily in this way. If the first attempt to resolve the question with your TA fails, send me a typed explanation (by email is fine), explaining the grading disagreement and the outcome of the discussion with the TA. Students should not be discouraged from pursuing questions about their grades. This policy is intended only to protect the impartiality of the grading process. You have two weeks after the midterm has been returned in review sessions to ask questions about your exam and score. Similarly, you have two weeks after the review session where students can see their final exam to ask questions about your final exam and score.Approximate Schedule: The schedule of topics covered in lectures will approximate the schedule below. Corresponding chapters in the text are listed. Students should read these chapters before each lecture. Date Topic Chapter 9/22/2015 Mathematics for Microeconomics 2 9/27/2015 Mathematics for Microeconomics and Preferences 2 9/29/2015 Preferences 3 10/4/2015 Preferences and Utility Maximization 3,4 10/6/2015 Utility Maximization and Choice 4 10/11/2015 Utility Maximization and Choice 4 10/13/2015 Income and