Postgraduate - UnitECC5650 - Microeconomic theory

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 3, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Business and Economics
Organisational Unit	Department of Economics
Offered	Clayton Second semester 2015 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Professor Jeffrey LaFrance

Synopsis

The unit aims to introduce students to the building blocks of microeconomics. It will start with individual choice theory where the focus will be to explain the mathematical structure of the different types of objects of choice that are conceived by economists to model individual behaviour across a variety of contexts. This will be followed by an exhaustive discussion of how and when preferences over a set of objects can be represented using a real-valued utility function. The basic concepts and results in social choice theory, cooperative and non-cooperative game theory, and mechanism design will also be covered. The unit will highlight the important role of axiomatization, optimization, and strategic reasoning in microeconomics.

Outcomes

The learning goals associated with this unit are to:

gain an understanding of the mathematical building blocks of formal microeconomic analysis
be able to express complex economic relationships using formal mathematical exposition
understand the core concepts and results in individual and social choice theory, game theory, and mechanism design.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 40%
Examination: 60%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. Independent study may include associated readings, assessment and preparation for scheduled activities. The unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Chief examiner(s)

Professor Jeffrey LaFrance

Co-requisites

Students must be enrolled in course code 3194 or 4427 to undertake this unit

Prohibitions

BEX5650