This course provides students with a basic understanding of advanced microeconomics, enabling them to understand and interpret recent developments in the literature and also giving them the appropriate toolkit to understand recent economic and finance models. Specific topics covered are game theory; price setting; oligopoly and market structure; inequality, risk and uncertainty; portfolio choice theory. On successful completion of the course students should be able to read and understand scholarly literature in microeconomic theory; be able to solve advanced analytical problems in economic theory; be able to identify open questions for their own research; understand the strategic decision making and price setting under different market structures; appreciate the welfare implications of such decisions; and appreciate risk and uncertainty and optimal portfolio choice in asset markets.

One 2-hour lecture per week for 10 weeks.

Four 1-hour tutorials.

None

None

■ Coursework: written assignment (45% of final grade for course)

■ Examination: a two-hour end-of-course examination (55% of final grade for course). 

The main aim of this course is to provide students with a basic understanding of advanced microeconomics to enable them to understand and interpret recent developments in the literature covering:

■ Game theory

■ Price setting

■ Oligopoly and market structure

■ Inequality, risk and uncertainty

■ Portfolio choice theory

Upon completion of the module students should:

1. Represent strategic environments (with or without uncertainty) using game theoretical tools and demonstrate how to derive the optimal strategies;

2. Identify the crucial features of a market and demonstrate how these affect the working of the market (with focus on market power);

3. Evaluate the welfare implications in imperfectly competitive markets;

4. Represent decision under uncertainty and show how to derive the optimal portfolio choice in asset markets.

5. Address normative issues in a general equilibrium framework

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.