Welcome to the Economics 100C Website. Here you will find the course
syllabus,
a schedule of lessons, homework and examinations, and some bits of
advice.
Students in this class will be expected to check this site
regularly.
We will routinely use this site for posting announcements and homework
assignments.
This is a sequel to Economics 100A and 100B in which we stress
applications of techniques that you have learned in 100A and
100B. If you did not do well in Econ 100A and 100B, this is
not the course for you. In this course, we will build on things you
learned in 100A and 100B, and we will add some more advanced
material. The only textbook material that we will use
besides the readings
found on the Web are a few chapters from Varian's Intermediate
Microeconomics and Bergstrom and Varian's Workouts. Currently the website
has a rough outline of
what we will be doing and when. A more detailed outline of
the course will be filled in as the course progresses.
Check regularlyat this class website.
You will be expected to attend class regularly and to come to class
ready to discuss the attached readings. I will take attendance
and I will call on people
regularly and record whether they were prepared. In
addition to attendance and class participation, grades will be based on
a
midterm, a final, and regular homework assignments.
Approximate Class Schedule
Think of this as a forecast--like the weather report. It is
fairly accurate for the short term, but we will reserve some
flexibility to make changes in the the schedule in response to the
march of events.
Unit 1--Economics of Information
Technology
March 31
Classroom experiment with Network Externalities and Picture
Phones
We will discuss network externalities, theory and applications.
Prepare for class by reading the assignment for today. (Remember: Class participation
determines part of your course grade)
Readings: Please
read the remainder of Chapter 35, Network Externalities from Intermediate
Microeconomics before coming to class on April 7.
April 7
Classroom Experiment with Competing standards (Computer operating
Systems)
First Homework assignment is due today. See March 31, assignment.
Readings: Please read the
following materials and be prepared to discuss them in class on April 9.
April 9 Discussion of Information
Technology. Prepare for class by reading the assignment for
today. (Remember: Class participation
determines part of your course grade)
Readings: Read
the remainder of Chapter 35: Information Technology in Intermediate Microeconomics by H.
Varian, pages 658-664
Homework assignment: Problems 1, 2,3, and 9
in Bergstrom
and Varian, Workouts , Chapter
35
Unit 2--Intellectual Property and
Patents
April 14 Second Homework
assignment is due today. See April 9, assignment. Readings: Please read the
following and come prepared to discuss in class on April 14.
We will assign several chapters from this book. You may find it
interesting to look at other material at the website for this
book, especially the
Against Monopoly Blog. David Levine's webpage has quite a lot of other
interesting stuff as well.
April 16 Readings: Please
read the following and come prepared to discuss in class on April
16
Incidentally, Professor Becker, who is a Nobel Prize winner in
economics and one of the most
creative thinkers in economics, along with Richard Posner, a
distinguished law professor, maintain an interesting
blog dealing with matters of economic policy and law.
April 23
Readings: Please
read the following and come prepared to discuss in class on April
23
