JEB108 - Microeconomics II
| Credit: | 6 |
|---|---|
| Credit ETCS: | 6 |
| Hours weekly: | 2/2 |
| Status: | Bachelors - All BEF - core English Semester - winter |
| Obligatory courses: | JEB104 - Microeconomics I |
| Recommended courses: | JEB003 - Economics I JEB004 - Economics II |
| Course supervisors: | Julie Chytilová Ph.D., Renomia Chair |
| Teachers: | Julie Chytilová Ph.D., Renomia Chair |
| Assistants: | |
| Schedule: | TBA |
| Announcements: | Registration in the Student Information System (SIS) The number of students in the course is limited to 60. Students of the English program Bachelor in Economics and Finance (BEF) and all other students who passed the course Microeconomics I – JEB104 have priority when registering into the Student Information System. The procedure is the following. At the start of the registration into SIS, the capacity of the course will not be limited. After two days, the capacity will be limited to 60. If, at that point of time (after the first two days of registration), there are more students than 60 registered for the course, some students will be un-registered such that 60 students remain. This will be done according to the following rule: BEF students and students who passed the course Microeconomics I – JEB104 have priority. The remaining capacity will be filled by other students, according to the time when they registered into SIS. The remaining students will be un-registered. After the first two days of registration, the standard procedure applies. BEF students and other students who passed the course Microeconomics I – JEB104 have no priority anymore. |
| Literature: | Primer text: Hal R. Varian, Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach, W.W. Norton &Company, 8th edition, 2010. Many copies are available in the IES library. Other useful textbooks are, for example: - T. Nechyba, Microeconomics: An Intuitive Approach with Calculus, South-Western, Cengage Learning - W. Nicholson/C. Snyder, Microeconomic Theory: Basis Principles and Extensions, South- Western - Schotter, Microeconomics: A Modern Approach, South-Western 2009 The primer text covers all main topics covered in the lectures. Any extensions presented at the lectures and not available in the Varian textbook can be downloaded from Moodles (http://dl1.cuni.cz/course/category.php?id=44). It is important that students get familiar with Moodles. It will be a platform where you can download the lecture slides, tasks for seminars, learn your grade and discuss the concepts with other students. The login to the course is “micro”. |
| Description: | The course builds on the introductory microeconomics course (JEB003) and on Microeconomics I (JEB104). It focuses on the theory of producer behaviour and market structure. Specific topics include technology, profit maximization and cost minimization, market structures (perfect competition, monopoly, oligopoly), and -- if time allows -- game theory and behavioural economics. |
| Content: | (1) Technology - Production set and production function, isoquants - Marginal product and technical rate of substitution - Returns to scale (2) Profit maximization - Short-run and long-run optimization - Opportunity costs (3) Cost minimization - Cost function, isocost lines - Long-run and short-run costs - Sunk costs (4) Cost curves - Fixed and variable costs, marginal and average costs - Long-run cost curves – envelope (5) Firm supply - Pure competition - Supply decision of a competitive firm - Profits and producer’s surplus (6) Industry supply - Short-run and long-run industry supply - Economic rent (7) Monopoly - What causes monopolies? - Monopolist’s profit - Inefficiency of monopoly (8) Price discrimination - First-degree price discrimination - Second-degree price discrimination - Third-degree price discrimination - Monopolistic competition (9) Oligopoly - Stackelberg model - Cournot model - Bertrand model - Collusion If time allows: Game theory, Behavioral economics, Welfare, Externalities |
| Seminar: | In the seminars, we will review some problematic concepts from the lectures and go through exercises which should sharpen the understanding of topics covered during the lectures. Seminars will serve two purposes, they will give you a good background for computing Aplia exercises and additionally prepare you for more complicated problems you will be asked to solve during the midterm and final exams. |
| Examination dates: | Mid-term exam: TBA Final exam: TBA |
| Course requirements: | The final grade will consist of three parts: - Aplia exercises (30%) - Midterm exam (20%) - Final exam (50%) - Zero score in one of the parts implies zero points in total Aplia system is an online system that provides students with the opportunity to fulfil their course requirements during the semester. Ideally, every week you will fulfil an assignment related to the topic covered during the lecture and in the Varian textbook. Each student has to pay GBP 21 to access Aplia for this course. This payment allows you to access Aplia for both semesters of the Microeconomics course. Thus, if you attended the course JEB104 Microeconomics I in the summer semester you already paid for your access to Aplia also for this term. Aplia offers a grace period of unlimited access to this course, so that students can try it before (or without) paying. We will go through details about registration to Aplia during the first lecture. |