Microeconomic Analysis 2 (4 cr)

Code:
26083
Field:
Microeconomics
Target:
Bachelor's students
Organiser:
Hanken Shool of Economics
Instructor:
Topi Miettinen
Period:
Period 1
Format:
Lecture
Method:
Contact teaching
Venue:
Hanken
Enrollment:

In case of conflicting information consider the Sisu/Moodle pages the primary source of information.

Aalto and UH economics students can enroll in their home university’s SISU! Further instructions can be found on the How to enroll? page, also for other students.

Before taking and completing the course make sure that the credits can be counted towards your degree at your home university by checking which courses are included in your curriculum or by contacting your home university’s student/learning services.

  • A Moodle course key will be sent by email (to your Hanken email address) or it is posted as a message in Sisu couple of days before the course starts.
  • Log in with your Hanken username to be able to use all the features of the course workspace.
  • More tips for enrolling in Moodle can be found here.

The course departs from the basic case of perfectly competitive markets. The course then proceeds by illustrating case by case how deviations from any of the conditions of perfect competition typically leads to market imperfections and failures , i.e. economic inefficiency and thus societally ineffective outcomes. The course analyses courses of action that market parties, regulators, and the public sector can take to combat these market failures and to improve efficiency. Basics of strategic behavior is presented as well as how it features in (i) various forms of market power, (ii) incomplete and asymmetric information, (iii) provision of public goods, (iv) in interactions with extenal effects such as pollution or CO2 emissions. Students learn to analyse this by means of (i) simple theoretical models, and (ii) corresponding interactived decision making experiments where the students themselves act as market participants. The students also get to analyse the connection between the thus generated data and the theoretical predictions expressed in the simple models. 

This course corresponds to the latter half of the previously offered course "Mikroekonomisk företags- och samhällsanalys 26032/26032-V" (Intermediate microeconomics). 

After completing the course, you will be able to:

  • indentify the charasteristics of competitive markets
  • analyse how departures from competitive markets lead to societal and market inefficiency
  •  evaluate societal value of markets
  • identify ways how societies can combat market failures and improve societal outcomes of markets
  • solve simple microeconomic models and derive theoretical predictions
  • relate predictions to simple data and evalute whether and to which extent outcomes are predicted by theories
  • recognize the role of controlled experimentation in evaluating causal effects of policy changes.