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Institute for Global Health

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Microeconomics for Health

This module aims to acquaint students with the techniques and questions that arise in advanced Microeconomic Theory, so that students can apply microeconomic theory to the modelling of healthcare markets. The course will make extensive use of multivariate calculus and constrained optimisation techniques. 

This module will provide students with:

  • The relevant microeconomic concepts and tools that are used in the analysis of health care markets.
  • The ability to apply mathematical techniques to microeconomic problems.
  • The ability to apply core economic theory and economic reasoning to policy relevant topics.
  • An understanding of verbal, graphical, and mathematical representation of economic ideas and analysis, including the relationship between them.

Module code

GLBH0030

UCL credits

15

Module organiser

Dr Neha Batura

Please direct queries to the course administration team in the first instance igh.heds.information@ucl.ac.uk

Admission requirements

Anyone with a 2.1 or above in a quantitative first degree

Content

  • Preferences and utility
  • Consumer's choice problem
  • Indirect utility and expenditure function
  • Income and substitution effects
  • Choice under uncertainty
  • Production technology
  • Cost minimisation and profit maximisation
  • Perfect competition
  • Welfare and market outcomes
  • Monopoly
  • Game theory (Nash equilibrium and backward induction)
  • Oligopoly markets
  • Information economics: adverse selection and moral hazard
  • Externalities

Teaching and learning methods

The course will be taught primarily through lectures. Tutorials and problem classes will familiarise students with concepts and techniques through a hands-on approach.

Problem sheets will be provided to encourage self-study.

Moodle will be used to provide a repository of course materials, and in other ways at the discretion of the lecturer

Assessment

100% examination

Assessment date

19 February 2020, 10:00AM - 12:00PM

Selected reading list

David M. Kreps. A Course in Microeconomic Theory. Princeton University Press. ISBN: 9780691042640

Geoffrey A. Jehle, Philip J. Reny. Advanced Microeconomic Theory. Addison Wesley. ISBN: 0321204530