Additional Information
Book Details
Abstract
This is a standard text for upper level undergraduate/postgraduate microeconomics.
The book begins at the intermediate level and ends at a level appropriate for the graduate student. Updated and revised, this is a new edition of one of the best-selling advanced microeconomics texts to be published in Europe. This well informed book provides a comprehensive exposition of modern microeconomic theory, covering many of the issues currently being researched and debated. The book offers very rigorous, mathematical treatment of the topics discussed making it appropriate for graduate as well as able intermediate level students. The writing style is clear and concise and the book is particularly liked for the thoroughness with which the concepts are dealt.
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cover | Cover | ||
| MICROECONOMICS | iii | ||
| Contents | v | ||
| Preface to the third edition | ix | ||
| The nature and scope ofmicroeconomics | 1 | ||
| Concepts and methods | 1 | ||
| The economic and social framework | 8 | ||
| The theory of the consumer | 11 | ||
| The preference ordering | 11 | ||
| The feasible set | 22 | ||
| The consumption decision | 25 | ||
| The comparative statics of consumer behaviour | 29 | ||
| Offer curves and net demand curves | 36 | ||
| Appendix 1: The lexicographic ordering | 41 | ||
| Appendix 2: Existence of a utility function | 43 | ||
| Consumer theory: duality | 46 | ||
| The expenditure function | 46 | ||
| The indirect utility function, Roy’s identity and the Slutsky equation | 52 | ||
| Measuring the benefits of price changes | 58 | ||
| Composite commodities, separability and homotheticity | 66 | ||
| Further models of consumer behaviour | 71 | ||
| Revealed preference | 71 | ||
| The consumer as a labour supplier | 77 | ||
| Consumption and the allocation of time | 82 | ||
| Households | 86 | ||
| Production | 92 | ||
| Introduction | 92 | ||
| The production function | 96 | ||
| Variations in scale | 101 | ||
| Variations in input proportions | 105 | ||
| The multi-product case | 107 | ||
| Cost | 111 | ||
| Introduction | 111 | ||
| Long-run cost minimization | 114 | ||
| Short-run cost minimization | 126 | ||
| Cost minimization with several plants | 135 | ||
| Multi-product cost functions | 138 | ||
| Supply and firm objectives | 143 | ||
| Long-run profit maximization | 144 | ||
| Short-run profit maximization | 148 | ||
| The multi-product firm | 151 | ||
| The profit function and comparative statics | 154 | ||
| The entrepreneurial firm | 159 | ||
| Labour-managed firms | 164 | ||
| The theory of a competitive market | 170 | ||
| Short-run equilibrium | 170 | ||
| Stability of equilibrium | 175 | ||
| Long-run equilibrium | 184 | ||
| Conclusions | 189 | ||
| Monopoly | 190 | ||
| Introduction | 190 | ||
| Price and output determination under monopoly | 191 | ||
| Price discrimination | 194 | ||
| Monopoly welfare loss | 205 | ||
| Input markets | 210 | ||
| Demand for inputs | 210 | ||
| Monopsony | 216 | ||
| Unions as monopoly input suppliers | 220 | ||
| Bilateral monopoly | 223 | ||
| Capital markets | 227 | ||
| Introduction | 227 | ||
| Optimal consumption over time | 227 | ||
| The optimal investment decision | 231 | ||
| Capital market equilibrium under certainty | 240 | ||
| Extension to many periods | 245 | ||
| General equilibrium | 250 | ||
| Introduction | 250 | ||
| Walrasian equilibrium of a competitive economy | 251 | ||
| Existence of Walrasian equilibrium | 254 | ||
| Stability of Walrasian equilibrium | 260 | ||
| Edgeworth exchange theory | 266 | ||
| Exchange, equilibrium and the core | 269 | ||
| Welfare economics | 279 | ||
| Introduction | 279 | ||
| Pareto efficient resource allocation | 279 | ||
| Welfare functions and the Pareto criterion | 289 | ||
| Pareto efficiency and competitive markets | 293 | ||
| Distribution and markets | 299 | ||
| Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem | 305 | ||
| Market failure and government failure | 314 | ||
| The causes of market failure | 314 | ||
| Instances of market failure | 318 | ||
| The theory of the second best | 335 | ||
| Government action and government failure | 340 | ||
| Game theory | 346 | ||
| Introduction | 346 | ||
| Game representation and solutions | 348 | ||
| Games of imperfect and incomplete information | 362 | ||
| Mixed strategies | 375 | ||
| Cooperative bargaining games | 377 | ||
| Bargaining as a non-cooperative game | 385 | ||
| Delay and disagreement in bargaining | 392 | ||
| Oligopoly | 400 | ||
| Introduction | 400 | ||
| One-shot games | 401 | ||
| Oligopoly as a repeated game | 417 | ||
| Entry | 433 | ||
| Conclusions | 444 | ||
| Choice under uncertainty | 446 | ||
| Introduction | 446 | ||
| A formalization of ‘uncertainty’ | 447 | ||
| Choice under uncertainty | 449 | ||
| Properties of the utility function | 456 | ||
| Risk aversion and indifference curves | 466 | ||
| Measures of risk | 473 | ||
| Comparative statics under uncertainty | 483 | ||
| Production under uncertainty | 491 | ||
| Introduction | 491 | ||
| Competitive firm under uncertainty | 491 | ||
| Production with futures markets | 503 | ||
| Insurance, risk spreading and pooling | 507 | ||
| Introduction | 507 | ||
| The insurance decision | 507 | ||
| Incomplete insurance markets | 514 | ||
| Risk spreading: the Arrow-Lind Theorem | 520 | ||
| Risk pooling and diversification | 525 | ||
| Asymmetric information in insurance markets: adverse selection | 530 | ||
| Asymmetric information in insurance markets: moral hazard | 540 | ||
| Signalling | 547 | ||
| Agency, contract theory and the firm | 553 | ||
| Critique of the classical theory of the firm | 553 | ||
| Agency theory and the separation of ownership from control | 555 | ||
| The moral hazard principal–agent model | 568 | ||
| The adverse selection principal–agent model | 579 | ||
| General equilibrium under uncertaintyand incomplete markets | 602 | ||
| Introduction | 602 | ||
| Complete markets in state-contingent income claims | 604 | ||
| State-contingent commodities | 614 | ||
| Efficiency with production | 627 | ||
| The stock market | 637 | ||
| Incomplete stock markets | 648 | ||
| Mathematical Appendices | viii | ||
| The structure of an optimization problem | 657 | ||
| Solutions to optimization problems | 660 | ||
| Existence of solutions | 670 | ||
| Local and global optima | 672 | ||
| Uniqueness of solutions | 675 | ||
| Interior and boundary optima | 677 | ||
| Concave programming and theKuhn–Tucker conditions | 686 | ||
| Second-order conditions andcomparative statics | 696 | ||
| The envelope theorem | 708 | ||
| Fixed points and Brouwer’s Theorem | 710 | ||
| Bayes’ Theorem | 712 | ||
| References and further reading | viii | ||
| Bibliography | 719 | ||
| Index | 727 |