PUAF 640 -- Fall 2008
Microeconomics and Policy Analysis
Contact Information:
Professor:
Randi Hjalmarsson
Teaching Assistants:
Seracia Arter
Allen Lo
Math Coach:
Andrew Fensterstock will be serving as a math coach to help students with the math underlying our courses. This is not just a resource for PUAF640, but for all of your courses. He will have office hours on Tuesdays from 4:00 - 5:00 in the student lounge. As this may not be a convenient time for many students, he will also be available via email to make arrangements to meet with you individually. Please take advantage of this resource!
Current Announcements:
PROBLEM SET 3 IS DUE OCTOBER 9.
THE MIDTERM EXAM IS OCTOBER 14 AND 16 (IN CLASS). IT WILL COVER MATERIAL ON LECTURES 1-5.
Office Hours:
Professor Hjalmarsson - Tuesdays 4:30-5:30 - Room 4131 VMH
Seracia Arter - Mondays 11:15-12:30 - Room 1101 VMH
Syllabus (in word format) -- Download
TA Handouts
Lecture Notes
Problem Sets and Solutions
Handouts and Readings
The Great Xbox Shortage of 2005 - Tim Harford
France Considers a Picnic Tax on Disposables - Associated Press, September 14, 2008
The Deadweight Loss of Christmas - Joel Waldfogel American Economic Review , 83(5)
"What is a Living Wage?" - NY Times - Jon Gertner - January 15, 2006
"Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast Food Industry" - NBER #4509 - Card and Krueger (1993)
"Why Vote?" -Freakonomics Column - The New York Times, November 6, 2005
A Tale of Two Fisheries -- John Tierney - The New York Times - August 27, 2000
“Measuring Positive Externalities from Unobservable Victim Precaution: An Empirical Analysis of Lojack” Ian Ayres and Steven Levitt, The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 113(1): 43-77
Link to an 'Economics in Action' website - a collection of articles from the Wall Street Journal in the 1990s that use the tools of microeconomics taught in this course. These articles are too old for you to use for your group projects, but they should give you some good ideas about various possibilities, etc.