Economic Design

This subject is not offered in 2016.

Admission into BH-COM or BH-ARTS (Economics) and

Students may not gain credit for both ECON40006 Economic Design and ECON90028 Economic Design.

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

This subject is an introduction to economic design, the interaction of modern economic theory, economic policy and experimental economics. The subject will cover mechanism design, auction theory, contract theory, and the fundamental results on the limits to efficiency in asymmetric information environments. The theory will be illustrated with case studies of recent policy applications of economic design techniques.

On successful completion of this subject student should be able to:

• Formulate economic problems as they relate to economic design.
• Identify relevant economic theory tools to address the problems.
• Critically evaluate policy prescriptions.
• Suggest alternative economic designs.

• One 1.5 hour mid-semester examination and one 3-hour end-of-semester examination totalling 80% and split between the midterm and the final as the maximum of 10% for the midterm plus 70% for the final and 30% for the midterm plus 50% for the final. (80%: 10%+70% or 30%+50%, whichever is greater)
• Fortnightly assignments not exceeding 2000 words (20%)

Putting Auction Theory to Work (P Milgrom), Cambridge University Press, 2004. B Salanie, The Economics of Contracts, MIT Press, 1997

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

• High level of development: problem solving; statistical reasoning; application of theory to practice; interpretation and analysis; critical thinking.

• Moderate level of development: accessing data and other information from a range of sources.

• Some level of development: oral communication; written communication; collaborative learning; team work; synthesis of data and other information; evaluation of data and other information.