Barton Lee: Catalogue data in Spring Semester 2025 |
| Name | Prof. Dr. Barton Lee |
| Field | Political Economy and eDemocracy |
| Address | Politische Ökonomie u. eDemokratie ETH Zürich, ZUE C 2 Zürichbergstrasse 18 8092 Zürich SWITZERLAND |
| Telephone | +41 44 633 85 59 |
| bartonlee@ethz.ch | |
| URL | http://www.bartonelee.com/ |
| Department | Management, Technology, and Economics |
| Relationship | Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) |
| Number | Title | ECTS | Hours | Lecturers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 363-0515-00L | Markets and Games | 3 credits | 2V | B. Lee | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | The course provides an introduction to the foundations of microeconomics: markets and game theory. Game theory is a set of theoretical tools for analyzing strategic behavior. We will develop and apply these tools to industrial organization, markets, and firm behavior. We’ll discuss concrete and real-world examples of their applications, including market regulation and competition law. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | The purpose of this course is to provide master’s students with an introduction to graduate-level microeconomics, particularly for students considering further graduate work in economics, business administration, management science, public policy, or political science. The course provides the fundamental concepts and tools for graduate courses in economics offered at ETH and UZH. After completing this course: - Students will be able to understand and analyze strategic interactions using formal tools from game theory. - Students will be able to understand and use existing models to make predictions of firm and market behavior. - Students will be able to use existing models to understand the benefits and costs of certain market regulations and competition laws. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | Microeconomics is the branch of economics which studies the decision-making and strategic behavior by individuals, households, firms, industry, and government. The economic equilibrium is the result of agents' (strategic) interactions and, ultimately, this equilibrium determines the allocation of scarce resources. Microeconomics is an element of nearly every subfield in economic analysis today. This course introduces the fundamental frameworks which form the basis of many economic models, policy decisions and government regulation, and research. This course focuses on Markets and Games. Game theory is a set of theoretical tools to analyze strategic behavior. We will develop and apply these tools to industrial organization, markets, and firm behavior. The course content will be predominately theoretical, and it will make use of mathematical notation and techniques. However, throughout the course, relevant applications to markets (e.g., firm behavior, market structure, competition law, and anti-trust regulation) will be analyzed and discussed. A broad outline of the course content that we will aim to cover is described below. Game theory: - Normal-form games (e.g., dominated strategies and admissibility; Nash equilibrium in pure strategies; Nash equilibrium in mixed strategies). - Extensive-form games (e.g., backward induction and Subgame Perfect Nash Equilibrium). Markets: - Monopoly Firm Behavior - Foundational Models of (perfect and imperfect) Market Competition - Collusion, Mergers and Acquisitions - Competition Law and Anti-trust Regulation - Market Competition with Innovation and Research & Development (R&D) - Market Competition with Informative and Uninformative Advertising References. The course content will be drawn from a variety of sources. Some relevant texts are below: - Cabral, L.M., 2017. Introduction to industrial organization. MIT press. - Ellingsen, T., 2023. Institutional and organizational economics: a behavioral game theory introduction. John Wiley & Sons. - Espinola-Arredondo, A. and Muñoz-Garcia, F., 2023. Game Theory: An Introduction with Step-by-step Examples. Springer Nature. - Gibbons, R., 1992. Game theory for applied economists. Princeton University Press. - Pepall, L., Richards, D. and Norman, G., 2014. Industrial organization: Contemporary theory and empirical applications. John Wiley & Sons. - Tirole J., 1988, The theory of industrial organization. MIT Press. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lecture notes | The lecture will be based on lecture slides, which will be made available on Moodle. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literature | The first half of the course (“Decisions and markets”) is mostly based on the textbook by R. Serrano and A. Feldman: "A Short Course in Intermediate Microeconomics with Calculus" (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Another textbook of interest is "Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach" by H. Varian (Norton, 2014). Exercises are available in the textbook by R. Serrano and A. Feldman ("A Short Course in Intermediate Microeconomics with Calculus", Cambridge University Press, 2013). More exercises can be found in the book "Workouts in Intermediate Microeconomics" by T. Bergstrom and H. Varian (Norton, 2010). The second half of the course (“Games”) is mostly based on the textbook by R. Gibbons “Game Theory for Applied Economists” (Princeton University Press, 1992). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prerequisites / Notice | The course is open to students who have completed an undergraduate course in economics principles and an undergraduate course in multivariate calculus. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Competencies |
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| 364-0581-00L | Microeconomics Seminar (ETH/UZH) No enrolment to this course at ETH Zurich. Book the corresponding module directly at UZH as an incoming student. UZH Module Code: 03SMDOEC6089 Mind the enrolment deadlines at UZH: https://www.uzh.ch/cmsssl/en/studies/application/deadlines.html | 0 credits | 2S | H. Gersbach, B. Lee | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | Research Seminar research papers of leading researchers in Microeconomics are presented and discussed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Learning objective | Research Seminar research papers of leading researchers in Microeconomics are presented and discussed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | Invited Speakers present current research in Microeconomics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||