ECON 206: Advanced Microeconomic Theory

Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organizations

sf105@duke.edu — Sun, 13 May 2012 03:27:27 +0000

Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organizations hopes to explore two questions about the foundations the firm: is production increased more when specialization occurs within the firm or across firms and what is the structure of the firm? This paper was presented by Andreas Moller, Frank Guan, William Snyderwine, Biyuan Zhang and Yanchi Yu. Enjoy!

Mortality decline, human capital investment, and economic growth

sf105@duke.edu — Sun, 13 May 2012 02:55:50 +0000

What is the relationship between increased life expectancy and investment in human capital during economic growth? The conclusion from Kalemli-Ozcan, Ryder, and Weil is that the effect of mortality decline on schooling works through increased length of time in which education is paid off. Kuan Liu, Ibrahim Keita, Daijing Lü, and Alecia Waite compiled the notes for the presentation on Mortality decline, human capital investment, and economic growth. Enjoy!

Intergenerational Equity and Exhaustible Resources

sf105@duke.edu — Sun, 13 May 2012 02:43:33 +0000

What is the optimal consumption path of exhaustible resources when the goal is for those resources to be available to future generations as well? Do we consume as much as desired in the present time period? Do we consume none and leave it for future generations? This is the basis of Solow’s paper on Intergenerational Equity and Exhaustible Resources, presented and summarized by Alecia Waite, Ibrahim Keita, Kuan Liu, and Daijing Lv.

A Theory of Ambiguous Property Rights in Transition Economics

sf105@duke.edu — Sat, 12 May 2012 17:30:57 +0000

Though David Li focused on Chinese Non-State Sector, A Theory of Ambiguous Property Rights in Transition Economics can be applied to other developing or developed countries where there is a potential for government bureaucracy in interactions with the private sector. Enjoy this summary by Jeff Faris, Alla Khalitova, Lijing Song, and Xiao Qin.

The Economics of Imperfect Information

sf105@duke.edu — Fri, 11 May 2012 06:03:08 +0000

Ben Barber, Ganna Tkackencho, Zhi Chen, Xiaoshu Bei, and Shabai Jiang, of the Spring 2012 Econ 206 class, have their own take on the classic Rothschild and Stiglitz publication on The Economics of Imperfect Information.View their notes on Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets here.

Is Addiction Rational?

sf105@duke.edu — Fri, 11 May 2012 04:26:23 +0000

The idea of addiction being rational may sound strange, but it has been studied extensively after the original rational addiction theory proposed by Gary Becker and Kevin Murphy. Salama Freed presents to the Spring 2012 Econ 206 class. Enjoy A Theory of Rational Addiction.

The Efficient Allocation of Individuals to Positions

sf105@duke.edu — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 02:55:57 +0000

Hylland and Zeckhauser consider the problem of efficiently allocating individuals to positions with capacity constraints when the preferences of individuals are unknown and there is not an external medium of exchange that can facilitate the allocation. A social choice mechanism in which individuals are induced to tell the truth is a clever solution to this problem. Justina Adamanti, Liz Malm, Yuqing Hu, and Krishanu Ray presented The Efficient Allocation of Individuals to Positions.

Optimal Exhaustible Resource Depletion with Endogenous Technical Change

sf105@duke.edu — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 02:24:33 +0000

In this paper, Kamien and Schwartz model the optimal depletion of nonrenewable resources with endogenous technical change. Kuan Liu, Daijing Lv, Ibrahim Keita, and Alecia Waite presented Kamien and Schwartz’s model on Optimal Exhaustible Resource Depletion with Endogenous Technical Change.

College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage

sf105@duke.edu — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 01:15:22 +0000

Though the title of this paper seems to address a pretty specific issue, the mechanism proposed by Gale and Shapley can be generalized to several problems related to one and two sided matching. Erin Lett, Allison Jaros, Morgan Lucas, and Lucy Chang provided a demonstration of the Gale-Shapley matching mechanism for the Econ 206 class to properly explain the theory behind College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage.

Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design

sf105@duke.edu — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 00:20:34 +0000

Holmstrom and Milgrom extend the general principal agent model, where there is one task assigned to the agent, into a model where the agent is assigned multiple tasks. They provide a theory explaining such topics as how to set up a wage contract that will extract maximum effort from employees and how to assign tasks between multiple agents. See the notes to Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design, provided by Belen Chavez, Yan Huang, Tanya Mallavarapu, Quanhe Wang for more details.