Microeconomic Theory

Topic 1: Prices, Markets and Efficiency

Applications and Links

  • International ivory trade: Michael Sas-Rolfes presents the argument that selling stockpiles will reduce poaching. Stephanie Schuttler reviews some of the common arguments for both burning and offloading stockpiles.
  • Tax burden: Gonzalez-Paramo and Melguizo on how the burden of social security taxes is distributed across workers and employers in OECD economies. It measures how the economic burden is split.
  • Fair trade: The fair trade movement attempts to rectify the low wages and prices (by Western standards) that producers and workers often get for their products in poor countries. Paul Krugman, however, criticizes the movement in his article: In Praise of Cheap Labor.
  • Land Acquisition: The colonial eral law operative in India till recently stipulated that the government can acquire private land for a public purpose provided landowners are compensated an amount equal to the average recorded transaction price of land in the region in the previous three years. This sounds fair but is it? In an article, Maitreesh Ghatak and I point out some shortcomings of relying on historical market price.
  • Morality and Markets: The Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel recently criticized the tendency of putting a price on everything. Deirdre McCloskey and Samuel Bowles offer strong rebuttal of Sandel's arguments.