First exam (please use a calculator!)

Here is the cheat sheet (which as an added bonus also includes an old exam). The exam will cover the following chapters, with problems from the textbook similar to those specified below:

  • Ch 1: Introduction. (Problem 1.1 is a good problem to do 🙂
  • Ch 2: Decision trees. (Look at problems 2.1 – 2.4; problem 2.5 is interesting but too hard for an exam question.)
  • Ch 3: Time. (Look at some or all of problems 3.1 – 3.9 and 3.11 – 3.16. )
  • Ch 16: Inflation. (Look at some or all of problems 16.1 – 16.10.)
  • Ch 4: Risk. (Look at some or all of problems 4.1 – 4.5, 4.7, and 4.10 – 4.12. Problem 4.6—the Monty Hall problem—may confound your intuition, and problem 4.8 is really really hard and is not fair game for the exam.)
  • Ch 5: From one to some. (Look at some or all of problems 5.1 – 5.4.)

Second exam

There aren’t many formulas for this exam, but I put a couple of definitions on the cheat sheet (which as an added bonus also includes an old exam). The exam will cover the following chapters, with problems from the textbook similar to those specified below:

  • Ch 6: Cake cutting (Look at some or all of problems 6.1 – 6.3.)
  • Ch 7: Pareto efficiency (Look at some or all of problems 7.1 – 7.4.)
  • Ch 8: Simultaneous-move games (Look at some or all of problems 8.1 – 8.6.)
  • Ch 9: Auctions (Look at some or all of problems 9.1 – 9.6.)
  • Ch 10: From Some to Many will not be on the exam but it might be enlightening. (There are no problems in this chapter, but you should understand the concepts.)
  • Ch 17: Fisheries will not be on the exam but again might be enlightening. (There are no problems in this chapter, but it’s an important instance of the Tragedy of the Commons.)
  • Ch 18: Sequential-move games (Look at some or all of problems 18.2 – 18.5, 18.8, 18.12(a)-(c), 18.14, 18.15, 18.16.)

Third exam (please use a calculator!)

Here is the cheat sheet (which as an added bonus also includes an old exam). The exam will cover the following chapters, with problems from the textbook similar to those specified below:

  • Ch 10: From some to many. (You should be able to define “competitive market” and to differentiate between game theory and price theory.)
  • Ch 11: Supply and demand. (Look at problem 11.1—this will be on the exam!—and some or all of problems 11.2 – 11.8. You should also be able to solve simultaneous equations as in section 11.3 on “the algebra of markets”.)
  • Ch 12: Taxes. (Look at problems 12.1 – 12.11. These problems are really the heart of this section of the class.)
  • Ch 13: Margins. (There are no problems in this chapter, but note that you can use margins to explain, e.g., how taxes shift the curves in Ch 12. You do not need to be able to explain why, e.g., supply curves are also marginal cost curves, but you should be able to discuss the basics of these curves both as supply/demand curves and as marginal cost/benefit curves.)
  • Ch 14: Elasticity. (Look at some or all of problems 14.1 – 14.5. You should also be able to describe perfectly elastic long-run supply curves and explain how taxes affect them.)
  • Ch 20: Supply and demand details. (Look at some or all of problems 20.1 and 20.3.)

The calculus option

Instead of taking the exams you can instead turn in these problems from the calculus-based text. At any time you can choose to take the exams instead.

  • Instead of the first midterm exam, turn in 1.2, 1.8 – 1.13, 3.17, 16.1. (If you can solve all these problems you have the math skills for this option.)
  • Instead of the second midterm exam, turn in 20.3, 20.4, 20.5, 20.10 – 20.12.
  • Instead of the third midterm exam, turn in 22.2 – 22.11.