Organization

For 2011-2012, the lectures will take place on Tuesdays 8-10am and for some lectures on Wednesdays 8-10am. Right now the planned lectures are:

• February: 7(Tu), 14(Tu), 22(Wed), 28(Tu)
• March: 6(Tu), 13(Tu), 20(Tu), 27(Tu), 28(Wed)
• April: 17(Tu), 24(Tu)
• May: 2 (Wed)

You should consult this page for any change to the schedule of the lectures or additional information.

Official ULB page for the course

The TA for the class will be Alessandro De Chiara (email) and François Koulischer (email). They will hold regular office hours and organize review sessions on Tuesday or Wednesday during which you will go through the solutions of the problem sets.

There will be ten problem sets. These problem sets are crucial for understanding the material. TA sessions will also be usefull only if you have worked through the problem sets seriously. Problem sets will count for 10% of the final grade, the final written exam will count for 90%.

Objectives

We will analyze environments in which some of the main assumptions underlying the two welfare theorems of general equilibrium are not satisfied: mainly information asymmetries and externalities. We will introduce new concepts and tools that have proven crucial to understand positive and normative questions in economies with such asymmetries and imperfectly functioning markets. We will apply the framework to questions to oligopoly theory, signaling and reputation building, second degree price discrimination, auctions, agency relationships, regulation under incomplete information.