Readings for Economics 501B

 

Most of the items on this page are copyrighted and are provided here under the Fair Use clause in U.S. copyright law, for Econ 501B students only.  
 

General Interest Readings:

  • Paul Douglas (of the Cobb-Douglas production/utility function).,
    including an excerpt from With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, by E.B. Sledge, Presidio Press, 1981.

  • "Kenneth Arrow's Contributions to General Equilibrium", by John Geanakoplos.
    The Econometric Society, 2017.

  • Ken Arrow, interviewed by Jerry Kelly,
    Social Choice and Welfare, Vol. 4, 1987, 43-62.

  • McKenzie, Arrow, and Debreu, and the birth of modern microeconomics,
    a post by David Warsh on his Economic Principals blog.
    See also a subsequent post containing an important correction (starting at the fifth paragraph) due to Bob Anderson.

  • Richard Feynman on the Importance of Examples and Diagrams,
    an excerpt from Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, by Richard P. Feynman, Norton, 1985.  
     

    Applied General Equilibrium:

  • "Financial Structure and Economic Welfare: Applied General Equilibrium Development Economics",
    Robert M. Townsend, in Annual Review of Economics, ed. by K. Arrow and T. Bresnahan, Vol.24, 2010, 507-546.

  • "The U.S. Market for Higher Education: A General Equilibrium Analysis of State and Private Colleges and Public Funding Policies",
    D. Epple, R. Romano, S. Sarpca, and H. Sieg, 2013.

  • Online computational appendix for the Epple et al. paper, above.

  • "Mergers When Prices Are Negotiated: Evidence from the Hospital Industry",
    Brand, Gowrisankaran, Nevo, and Town, 2012.  
     

    Equilibrium in the Presence of Uncertainty:

  • Pages 229-235 of General Equilibrium, Overlapping Generations Models, and Optimal Growth Theory,
    T. Bewley, Harvard University Press, 2007.

  • Pages 687-693 of Microeconomic Theory,
    A. Mas-Colell, M. Whinston, and J. Green, Oxford University Press, 1995.

  • Pages 333-339 of General Equilibrium and Welfare Economics: An Introduction,
    J. Moore, Springer, 2007.

  • "Arrow and General Equilibrium Theory",
    D. Duffie and H. Sonnenschein, in Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 27, 1989, 565-598.  
     

    Existence of Walrasian Equilibrium:

  • Excerpt from General Competitive Analysis,
    K.Arrow and F.Hahn, Holden Day, 1971.

  • First 21 pages of Applying General Equilibrium,
    J.Shoven and J.Whalley, Cambridge University Press, 1992.

  • First 10 pages of The Structure of Applied General Equilibrium Models,
    V.Ginsburgh and M.Keyzer, The MIT Press, 1997.  
     

    The Core:

  • "A Limit Theorem on the Core of an Economy",
    G. Debreu and H. Scarf, in International Economic Review, Vol. 4, 1963, 235-246.

  • "Markets with a Continuum of Traders",
    R. Aumann, in Econometrica, Vol. 32, 1964, 39-50.

  • "The Lovely but Lonely Vickrey Auction",
    L.Ausubel and P.Milgrom, Chapter 1 in P. Cramton, Y. Shoham, and R. Steinberg (eds.), Combinatorial Auctions, MIT Press, 2006.  
     

    Imperfect Competition:

  • "Partial Equilibrium," Chapter 4 of Advanced Microeconomic Theory,
    G.Jehle and P.Reny, Addison Wesley, 2001.

  • "Quantity Precommitment and Bertrand Competition Yield Cournot Outcomes",
    D. Kreps and J. Scheinkman, Bell Journal of Economics, Vol. 14, 1983, 326-337.

  • "Mergers When Prices Are Negotiated: Evidence from the Hospital Industry",
    Brand, Gowrisankaran, Nevo, and Town, 2012.  
     

    Public Goods and Externalities:

  • "Economics with Public Goods: An Elementary Geometric Exposition",
    William Thomson, in Journal of Public Economic Theory, Vol. 1, 1999, 139-176.

  • "The Problem of Social Cost",
    Ronald Coase, Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 3, 1960, 1-44.

  • "Out-of-Equilibrium Performance of Three Lindahl Mechanisms: Experimental Evidence",
    M. Van Essen, N. Lazzati, and M. Walker, in Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 74, 2012, 366-381.  
     

    Mechanism Design:

  • "College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage",
    D. Gale and L. Shapley, in The American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 69, 1962, 9-15.

  • Practical Market Design: Four Matching Mechanisms,
    Alvin Roth, et al, in American Economic Review, Vol. 95, 2005, 364-380.

  • "Out-of-Equilibrium Performance of Three Lindahl Mechanisms: Experimental Evidence",
    M. Van Essen, N. Lazzati, and M. Walker, in Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 74, 2012, 366-381.  
     
     

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