Lectures on Core Microeconomics

These notes are based on the microeconomics lectures delivered in the Master of Science in Applied Economics (MSAE) programme at the City University of Hong Kong. They have been delivered in the fall Semesters of 2005- 2007. The lectures are delivered over a period of thirteen weeks (three hours per week). One should always remember the time constraint involved in delivering lectures. Everything can not be covered; therefore one has to be selective in what is taught. This is the reason for calling these lectures core microeconomics. The topics selected and taught reflect our perceptions and value judgement about core topics in microeconomics. Also the students in this class at the City University of Hong Kong come from a very heterogeneous background which varies a lot; medicine, law, mathematics, engineering, physics, biology, and of course economics. The course is designed to teach all these heterogeneous students important topics in microeconomics in a span of thirteen weeks. This is a tough task and many of these students are very ambitious and desirous of doing graduate studies in Europe, Canada, and the US. The feedback on this course has been extremely good from students who are pursuing graduate studies in Britain and the US. These are lecture notes that vary in level at which different topics are taught and also the depth at which these topics are covered. They should not be taken as a substitute for a textbook but as an aid for reading other textbooks.