An authoritative textbook based on the legendary economics course taught at the University of Chicago Price theory is a powerful analytical toolkit for measuring, explaining, and predicting human behavior in the marketplace. This incisive textbook provides an essential introduction to the subject, offering a diverse array of practical methods that empower students to learn by doing. Based on Economics 301, the legendary PhD course taught at the University of Chicago, the book emphasizes the importance of applying price theory in order to master its concepts. Chicago Price Theory features immersive chapter-length examples such as addictive goods, urban-property pricing, the consequences of prohibition, the value of a statistical life, and occupational choice. It looks at human behavior in the aggregate of an industry, region, or demographic group, but also provides models of individuals when they offer insights about the aggregate. The book explains the surprising answers that price theory can provide to practical questions about taxation, education, the housing market, government subsidies, and much more. Emphasizes the application of price theory, enabling students to learn by doing Features chapter-length examples such as addictive goods, urban-property pricing, the consequences of prohibition, and the value of a statistical life Supported by video lectures taught by Kevin M. Murphy and Gary Becker The video course enables students to learn the theory at home and practice the applications in the classroom

An introduction to one of the most powerful tools in modern economics Game Theory for Applied Economists introduces one of the most powerful tools of modern economics to a wide audience: those who will later construct or consume game-theoretic models. Robert Gibbons addresses scholars in applied fields within economics who want a serious and thorough discussion of game theory but who may have found other works too abstract. Gibbons emphasizes the economic applications of the theory at least as much as the pure theory itself; formal arguments about abstract games play a minor role. The applications illustrate the process of model building—of translating an informal description of a multi-person decision situation into a formal game-theoretic problem to be analyzed. Also, the variety of applications shows that similar issues arise in different areas of economics, and that the same game-theoretic tools can be applied in each setting. In order to emphasize the broad potential scope of the theory, conventional applications from industrial organization have been largely replaced by applications from labor, macro, and other applied fields in economics. The book covers four classes of games, and four corresponding notions of equilibrium: static games of complete information and Nash equilibrium, dynamic games of complete information and subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium, static games of incomplete information and Bayesian Nash equilibrium, and dynamic games of incomplete information and perfect Bayesian equilibrium.

Others might have called this book Micro Theory or Price Theory. Becker's choice of Economic Theory as the title for his book reflects his deep belief that there is only one kind of economic theory, not separate theories for micro problems, macro problems, non-market decisions, and so on. Indeed, as he notes, the most promising development in recent years in the literature on large scale economic problems such as unemployment has been the increasing reliance on utility maximization, a concept generally identified with microeconomics. Microeconomics is the subject matter of this volume, but it is emphatically not confined to microeconomics in the literal sense of micro units like firms or households. Becker's main interest is in market behavior of aggregations of firms and households. Although important inferences are drawn about individual firms and households, the author tries to understand aggregate responses to changes in basic economic parameters like tax rates, tariff schedules, technology, or antitrust provisions. His discussion is related to the market sector in industrialized economies, but the principles developed are applied to other sectors and different kinds of choices. Becker argues that economic analysis is essential to understand much of the behavior traditionally studied by sociologists, anthropologists, and other social scientists. The broad definition of economics in terms of scarce means and competing ends is taken seriously and should be a source of pride to economists since it provides insights into a wide variety of problems. Practically all statements proved mathematically are also provided geometrically or verbally in the body of the text.

A collection of influential papers (including some by Nobel laureates), illustrating the uses and techniques of applied price theory. It covers North America, Europe, Australia, Africa and Asia. A variety of expositions are expounded, from geometric to optimal control theory and game theory.

This volume provides an introduction to the properties of functional differential equations and their applications in diverse fields such as immunology, nuclear power generation, heat transfer, signal processing, medicine and economics. In particular, it deals with problems and methods relating to systems having a memory (hereditary systems). The book contains eight chapters. Chapter 1 explains where functional differential equations come from and what sort of problems arise in applications. Chapter 2 gives a broad introduction to the basic principle involved and deals with systems having discrete and distributed delay. Chapters 3-5 are devoted to stability problems for retarded, neutral and stochastic functional differential equations. Problems of optimal control and estimation are considered in Chapters 6-8. For applied mathematicians, engineers, and physicists whose work involves mathematical modeling of hereditary systems. This volume can also be recommended as a supplementary text for graduate students who wish to become better acquainted with the properties and applications of functional differential equations.