Study Guide for Microeconomics

Robert S. Pindyck is the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd. Professor of Economics and Finance in the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. Daniel L. Rubinfeld is the Robert L. Bridges Professor of Law and Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and Professor of Law at NYU. Both received their PhDs from M.I.T., Pindyck in 1971 and Rubinfeld in 1972. Professor Pindyck's research and writing have covered a variety of topics in microeconomics, including the effects of uncertainty on firm behavior and market structure; the behavior of natural resource, commodity, and financial markets; environmental economics; and criteria for investment decisions. Professor Rubinfeld, who served as chief economist at the Department of Justice in 1997 and 1998, is the author of a variety of articles relating to antitrust, competition policy, law and economics, law and statistics, and public economics. Pindyck and Rubinfeld are also co-authors of Econometric Models and Economic Forecasts, another best-selling textbook that makes a perfect gift (birthdays, weddings, bar mitzvahs, you name it) for the man or woman who has everything. These two authors are always looking for ways to earn some extra spending money, so they enrolled as human subjects in a double-blind test of a new hair restoration medication. Rubinfeld strongly suspects that he is being given the placebo. This is probably more than you want to know about these authors, but for further information, see their websites: http://web.mit.edu/rpindyck/www and http://www.law.berkeley.edu/faculty/rubinfeldd.

Part 1: Introduction: Markets and Prices 1. Preliminaries 2. The Basics of Supply and Demand Part 2: Producers, Consumers, and Competitive Markets 3. Consumer Behavior 4. Individual and Market Demand 5. Uncertainty and Consumer Behavior 6. Production 7. The Cost of Production 8. Profit Maximization and Competitive Supply 9. The Analysis of Competitive Markets Part 3: Market Structure and Competitive Strategy 10. Market Power: Monopoly and Monopsony 11. Pricing with Market Power 12. Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly 13. Game Theory and Competitive Strategy 14. Markets for Factor Inputs 15. Investment, Time, and Capital Markets Part 4: Information, Market Failure, and the Role of Government 16. General Equilibrium and Economic Efficiency 17. Markets with Asymmetric Information 18. Externalities and Public Goods 19. Behavioral Economics Appendix: The Basics of Regression Answers to Selected Exercises