MS&E 341: Advanced Economic Analysis

 

Course Page

 

Home          Vita          Research          Teaching          Personal

 

  

           Summary

This course builds on the concepts developed in MS&E 241 and provides a broad introduction to microeconomic theory at the doctoral level. The main objectives of the course are: 1. to provide a solid core of analytical and conceptual tools that students can use directly in their research; 2. to give students an understanding of both the classic microeconomic theory and some of the recent advances; 3. to enable students to address a microeconomic problem by structuring it as a formal model, the analysis of which yields useful predictions and insights. – Topics to be covered include game theory, industrial organization, general equilibrium, social choice, incentives & mechanism design.

 

<Download Current Syllabus (Version: April 1, 2008)> 

 

Contact Details

 

Instructor

Thomas A. Weber

Terman Engineering Center, Room 442

Phone: (650) 725-6827 [650-PALM-VCR]

Fax: (650) 723-1614

E-Mail: webert@stanford.edu

Office Hours: Tuesday, 5-7 pm & by appointment

 

 

Teaching Assistance

Wilfred Wong                                                                                    

Terman Engineering Center, Room 473

Office Hours: Friday, 5:15-7:15 pm (and instead on Monday, 1-3 pm, before problem set is due)

E-Mail: wilfredw@stanford.edu  

 

 

Administrative Assistance

Ms. Marilynn Rose                                                                           

Terman Engineering Center, Room 310

Phone: (650) 725-1622

E-Mail: mjrose@stanford.edu

 

 

 

Course Materials (requires authentication)

<<< Download Complete Lecture Notes (Version: April 1, 2008; Filesize 14.7MB, 365 pages) >>>

 

This file also contains all the problem sets and solutions for the 2004 edition of the course.

If any lecture notes need updating, I’ll post updated notes on the individual pages by lecture. At the end of the course I will make again an updated complete file with all compiled lecture notes available.

I.                     Game Theory                                                                                    

II.                   Industrial Organization                                             

III.                  General Equilibrium                                                 

IV.               Social Choice                                                           

V.                 Incentives & Mechanism Design                            

 

Current Problem Sets & Solutions

·        Problem Set 1 (Due: Tuesday, April 15)  –  Solutions

·        Problem Set 2 (Due: Tuesday, April 29)  –  Solutions

·        Problem Set 3 (Due: Tuesday, May 27)  –  Solutions

 

Current Exams & Solutions

·        Midterm Exam (May 2 – May 5 at 5 pm)  –  Solutions

·        Final Exam (June 6 – June 9 at noon)  –  Solutions

 

         Useful Links (Some Stanford Only)

·        Engineering Library × obtain the reference books for this course from the circulation desk

·        Econlit × major database where you can look for published work by keyword, etc.

·        Inomics × index of Economics conferences (quite comprehensive, but still incomplete)

·        JSTOR × download top journal papers in Business, Economics, Statistics; most recent years not available

·        Social Science Citation Index × useful to forward-search references to key papers that you identify: after searching the paper, go to its full record, click on the number next to “Times Cited”, then on the following page click on “Total”; the citation index sometimes also contains direct links to databases with pdf-copies of the papers

·        Social Science Research Network × large repository of current working papers in the social sciences