SyllabusBEPP2500 Spring2024
SyllabusBEPP2500 Spring2024
SyllabusBEPP2500 Spring2024
Spring 2024
Course description
This course introduces you to “managerial economics” which is the application of microeconomic
theory to managerial decision-making. Microeconomic theory is a remarkably useful body of ideas
for understanding and analyzing the behavior of individuals and firms in a variety of economic
settings. The goal of the course is for you to understand this body of theory well enough so that
you can effectively analyze managerial (and other) problems in an economic framework.
While this is a “tools” course, we cover many real-world applications, particularly business
applications, so that you can witness the usefulness of these tools and acquire the skills to use them
yourself. We depart from the usual microeconomic theory course by giving more emphasis to
prescription: What should a manager do in order to achieve some objective? That course
deliverable is to be compared with description: Why do firms and consumers act the way they do?
The latter is still prominent in this course because only by understanding how other firms and
customers behave can managers determine what is best for them to do.
The first major task in the course is the development of the theory of supply and demand
underlying the competitive model, which serves as the benchmark for evaluating other market
structures. Outside of the purely competitive context, an understanding of demand is essential to
many firm decisions including pricing, marketing, and product positioning. The concept of supply
and the supply curve provides a valuable framework for thinking about firms’ costs and investment
decisions. After presenting the competitive model, we turn to other market structures more like
those encountered by real-world firms such as monopoly and oligopoly.
Recitations take place on Friday. During recitations, students work on problem sets under the
supervision of a graduate TA.
While in class, switch off cell phones, tablets, and anything else that may beep. Laptops can be
used only to take notes. Do not check email or browse the web during class.
Attendance during lectures is mandatory and counts for 6% of your grade. We will be taking
attendance in lectures. Download the Canvas student app on your phone. During each lecture,
you must check in using the app. Falsely reporting that you or another student is attending
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lectures is an honors violation and will be penalized even at the first offense. In case the app
malfunctions and you are unable to check in despite being present, please email the head TA
TBA within 24 hours of class while cc’ing your instructor. Requests for attendance credit that are
received later than 24 hours after class cannot be accommodated.
Everyone gets three free passes in BEPP 2500. This is the sum of all excused and unexcused
absences, including medical, religious, athletic, or personal events. Adding BEPP 2500 late,
arriving in Philadelphia after the start of the semester, extracurricular activities, or all other
reasons that made you miss a lecture will take one free pass away. Check your schedule today. If
you think you will not be able to attend class more than three times, this is not the right semester
for you to take BEPP 2500.
After using up your three free passes, all subsequent absences will lower your attendance grade by
1% per missed lecture, up to 6%. Attendance of the math refresher during the first week of class
will not be recorded. Attendance of recitations is strongly encouraged but not mandatory
throughout the semester.
Participation in class is not graded or judged. Spontaneous questions, discussion, and clarifications
are welcome and encouraged. Students may also be called upon to briefly discuss materials.
Exams
There are two midterms and a final for the course. Please see the schedule below for the dates of
the midterms. The final will take place during exam week. The exact date is TBD by the Registrar.
Exam week ends on May 14, and you should not plan to leave campus before or on the last
day of exam week.
Students with disabilities: Requests for academic accommodations need to be made during the
first week of the semester, except under unusual circumstances, to arrange reasonable
accommodations. You must register with Student Disabilities Services (SDS) for disability
verification and for determination of reasonable academic accommodations.
Code of academic integrity: You are expected to review and abide by the University of
Pennsylvania’s Code of Academic Integrity. Violations of the code carry serious sanctions. We
will turn all cases of code violations over to the Office of Student Conduct and reserve the right to
impose additional sanctions, including a failing grade for an exam and the course.
Missed exams: Students are expected to attend all exams. A missed exam will be assigned zero
points, unless the student has a medical or personal emergency or some unavoidable school-related
conflict that is recognized and excused by the University. In all cases, a student must make a
request for an excused absence to the BEPP course administrator Beth Moskat
(emoskat@wharton.upenn.edu). We ask students to provide appropriate documentation. Conflicts
with other exams will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. In case of a conflict, a student is
required to notify us at least two weeks prior to the exam date.
A make-up exam is usually organized around the date of the scheduled exam. You can only attend
it if you have been authorized by the BEPP course administrator. As you can imagine, we can only
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organize one such make-up exam. If you miss both the scheduled and the make-up exam, and have
a valid excused absence for both, the weight originally assigned to the exam will be shifted to the
remaining exams equally. Specifically,
a) if you missed exam 1, your remaining exams 2 and 3 scores each have 42% weight;
b) if you missed exam 2, your exam 1 has 28% weight and your remaining exam 3 has 56%
weight.
For those who miss the final exam and have an excused absence, there will be a make-up final
exam in September. You will not receive a passing grade for the course unless you sat for the
final exam.
Sickness during exams: If you are feeling unwell, do not take the exam and go to a doctor
instead. You may not sit for an exam, leave the exam in the middle, and retroactively claim to
have been sick. In short, you may take an exam only once.
Re-grading policy: Grading mistakes are rare, but they can occur. In the event that you believe
your exam has been graded incorrectly, please follow these steps:
a) Your exam will be returned to you via Canvas under “Assignments”. Carefully look at
your exam and compare your answer to the answer sheet posted on Canvas. Take at least
24 hours to think about the answers before submitting a re-grade request.
b) To submit your re-grade request, download the Regrade Request Form from Canvas. For
each question of the exam that you think was mis-graded, explain how your graded exam
differs from the grading policy. Arguments on whether the grading policy is accurate are
not entertained, e.g., if the grading policy states there is no partial credit for a question,
you may not get partial credit for the said question, and so on. Everyone will be graded
on the same terms.
You will be able to submit the form through Canvas within one week of when exams are
returned to you (regardless of whether you have picked up your exam on that day).
c) In submitting a re-grade request, you submit your entire exam for regrading, not just the
question(s) you think were mis-graded. We reserve the right to re-grade the entire exam
and your score could go down or up as a result of re-grading.
You will submit your problem set through Canvas by the specified deadline. Late submissions will
not be accepted. There are several apps that allow you to take pictures of your work and save it as
a pdf file. You can ask the undergrad TAs for advice on which app to use or if you are facing any
technical/logistical issues.
At various points throughout the semester, we ask you for other deliverables, including a brief
math checkup that is due on Friday 1/26. These other deliverables are graded for participation only,
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meaning that you will get full credit as long as you submit them on time. Please see the schedule
below for due dates.
Grading
Grading is based on the three exams, attendance, and the 12 problem sets and other deliverables.
Each exam counts for 28% of your grade.
Out of the 12 problem sets and other deliverables, we drop the worst two and count the remaining
10 items towards the remaining 10% of your grade. The dropped items also account for any missed
deadlines due to a medical or personal emergency or some unavoidable, school-related conflict.
Prerequisites
You need to have taken ECON 0100 or BEPP 1000 (Introduction to Economics) or its equivalent
as well as MATH 1300 (Introduction to Calculus) or its equivalent. To assist you in reclaiming a
level of comfort in taking derivatives and solving algebraic equations, the first week of class is
dedicated to a review of relevant mathematical methods. While it may take some time to become
accustomed to applying calculus to real-world problems, it actually makes it significantly easier
to learn the basic principles of microeconomic theory. The math refresher during the first week of
class is useful to gauge the level of math that is required for the course, and which topics you might
need to seek help for.
Resources
Course website: The course Canvas site is https://canvas.upenn.edu/courses/1760333.
Textbook: The recommended (but not required) textbook for this course is Intermediate
Microeconomics with Calculus: A Modern Approach by Hal R. Varian. The latest edition is
available at the Penn Bookstore but you can use a different edition.
Readings and teaching materials: Details on required reading for the course (e.g., business cases)
will be announced closer to the lecture. All readings and teaching materials will be available on
Canvas.
Past exams: Past exams will be available on Canvas. While we are making past exams available,
they should not be your main source to study because BEPP 2500 has changed over the years. Past
exams often cover different topics and have different types of problems. If you want to use past
exams, it is up to you to decide which problems to look at. Please do not contact your instructor
regarding past exams.
Ed Discussion: If you have a question about the content or the organization of the course, there
are several resources available to you to get the answer. The primary venue for resolving
questions is Ed Discussion. Ed Discussion is designed to getting you help from classmates and
TAs fast and efficiently. You are encouraged to check Ed Discussion for an answer to your
question and, if it is not there, to then post your question on Ed Discussion.
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Ed Discussion is part of Canvas and you simply access it from the course Canvas site. There is
no separate signup.
Please post any questions related to the quizzes or other deliverables on Ed Discussion as well.
Office hours: Undergraduate TAs are holding office hours on Zoom for one-on-one and small-
group discussion. The TAs hold office hours throughout the week so that you can always find a
TA to talk to. Contact details and office hours are posted on Canvas.
To make the best use of student and TA time and provide a valuable and fair experience for all,
TAs will only answer questions pertaining to material up to and including that week of class
material. In addition, TAs will only answer questions on material posted on Canvas (quizzes,
lecture slides, and past exams). As the material for BEPP 2500 has changed over the years, past
exams may not be the most relevant and TAs are free to refuse to answer questions on them.
Instructors are available to answer your questions in class during Q&A. If you have something to
discuss that requires more privacy, email your instructor Ulrich Doraszelski
(doraszelski@wharton.upenn.edu), Anne Duchene (duchene@sas.upenn.edu), Ricardo Pique
(rpique@wharton.upenn.edu), or Alon Rubinstein (alonr@wharton.upenn.edu) to request an
appointment.
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MONDAY/ TUESDAY/
WEDNESDAY THUSRDAY FRIDAY TOPIC DELIVERABLE (DUE FRIDAY)
Session 1 M 1/22 T 1/23 Math refresher
Session 2 W 1/24 R 1/25 1/26 Course intro and logistics math checkup
Session 3 M 1/29 T 1/30 Preferences, choice, and utility maximization
Session 4 W 1/31 R 2/1 2/2 Preferences, choice, and utility maximization problem set 1
Session 5 M 2/5 T 2/6 Demand function
Session 6 W 2/7 R 2/8 2/9 Demand function problem set 2
Session 7 M 2/12 T 2/13 Production, returns to scale, isoquants, MRTS, and B4B
Session 8 W 2/14 R 2/15 2/16 Production, returns to scale, isoquants, MRTS, and B4B problem set 3
Session 9 M 2/19 T 2/20 Review
Session 10 R 2/22 Midterm 1 (7-9pm)
Session 11 M 2/26 T 2/27 Cost minimization, cost function, and economies of scale
Session 12 W 2/28 R 2/29 3/1 Cost minimization, cost function, and economies of scale problem set 4
SPRING BREAK 3/2-3/10
Session 13 M 3/11 T 3/12 Profit maximization and supply
Session 14 W 3/13 R 3/14 3/15 Profit maximization and supply problem set 5
Session 15 M 3/18 T 3/19 Competitive equilibrium, CS, PS, and welfare
Session 16 W 3/20 R 3/21 3/22 Competitive equilibrium, CS, PS, and welfare problem set 6
Session 17 M 3/25 T 3/26 Review
Session 18 R 3/28 Midterm 2 (7-9pm)
Session 19 M 4/1 T 4/2 Monopoly and market power
Session 20 W 4/3 R 4/4 4/5 Monopoly and market power probem set 7
Session 21 M 4/8 T 4/9 Price discrimination
Session 22 W 4/10 R 4/11 4/12 Static games and Nash equilibrium price discrimination example
Session 23 M 4/15 T 4/16 Static games and Nash equilibrium
Session 24 W 4/17 R 4/18 4/19 Imperfect competition: Cournot problem set 8
Session 25 M 4/22 T 4/23 Imperfect competition: OPEQ simulation OPEQ simulation (during class)
Session 26 W 4/24 R 4/25 4/26 Imperfect competition: Cournot problem set 9
Session 27 M 4/29 T 4/30 Wrap up