Welfare Economics and Social Choice Theory

Advanced microeconomic theory class for undergraduates. Building on the intermediate microeconomics course, the approach is more formal and mathematically more rigorous, presenting arguments and expecting students to carefully develop techniques in order to understand and produce logical proofs. Topics include the efficiency and coalitional stability properties of markets, as well as other mechanisms to allocate resources. Market failures are discussed, including advanced treatments of externalities, public goods, and asymmetric information. The second part of the course will discuss a number of topics in social choice theory, including different normative criteria of compensation, life and death choices, majority voting, Arrow’s impossibility theorem.