Teaching
ECON 6011: Microeconomic Theory
The first half of this course (taught by Chen Zhao) will introduce students to the theory of choice and producer theory. The second half (taught by me) develops these themes and studies the interaction of buyers and sellers in market settings. While the focus of the first half is optimization, the focus of the second half is equilibrium. Toward the last few lectures, I will also introduce the basics of comparative statics analysis, which is a cornerstone for deriving testable implications in many areas of economics....
ECON 6078: Topics in Economic Research II — Political Economy
The first half of this course (taught by Wing Suen) will introduce students to a variety of models commonly used in theoretical political economy. The purpose is to give students a basic set of tools so they can go deeper into the respective topics, or use those models in their research areas to study the political dimension of their relevant problems. The second half (taught by Heng Chen) goes into more specialized topics (regime change, political economy of bias, media markets), and will introduce further techniques (e.g., textual analysis) that are useful for political and other areas of research....
ECON 2232: Economics of Human Resources
This course develops and applies economic theory to analyze the operation of labor markets. Part of our time will also be devoted to studying labor market policies and human resource management practices. Introductory Microeconomics (ECON1210) is a pre-requisite to this course; and students are strongly recommended to have taken Intermediate Microeconomics (ECON2210) as well. As an applied subject, labor economics takes empirical evidence seriously. Students are expected not to be intimidated by numbers. I will also assume that students have some elementary knowledge of the calculus. However familiarity with mathematics and statistics is an advantage but not a prerequisite. There is no substitute for hard work....
ECON 3215: Uncertainty and Information
The economics of uncertainty and information has permeated virtually every field in economics. In this course, we develop the basic tools that are used in the study of behavior under uncertainty, and introduce some standard models of incomplete and asymmetric information. This course may be regarded as an advanced course in microeconomic theory. Students must have completed the intermediate level Microeconomic Theory course as a prerequisite....
Archive
Here is a collection of courses or mini-courses I have taught in the past.