Microeconomic Theory and Public Policy
Gain a comprehensive understanding of microeconomic research, from theory to empirical testing, and apply this understanding to public policy, with examples drawn primarily from the United States and other similar high income countries.
Course Information
Certificate Track
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About this Course
In this course, you will use microeconomic theory to analyze public policy with examples from the United States and other high income countries. By building on the model of consumer behavior, you’ll consider the operation of single and multiple markets and why they sometimes fail. You’ll use empirical examples to evaluate theory, focusing on the causal effects of policy interventions on economic outcomes.
This course is designed around forming research questions, framing them analytically, figuring out ways to test them with data, and then drawing insights. We will work toward this by investigating papers from leading economics journals to understand their research design, conclusions, and limitations.
The course is free to audit. Learners can take a proctored exam and earn a course certificate by paying a fee, which varies by ability to pay. Please see our FAQ articles for more information on the certificate and audit track features as well as more information on the pricing structure. Enroll in this course by selecting the "enroll now" button at the top of the page.
This course can be completed by itself or as part of the MITx MicroMasters program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy (DEDP), which provides a path toward the master’s in DEDP at MIT.
What you'll learn
The course will investigate the following topics:
- Minimum wage debate and causal inference in economics
- Consumer theory: the foundation of microeconomics
- Theory of choice and individual demand
- Demand functions, income effects, substitution effects, and labor supply
- Applied competitive analysis
- Theory and application of general equilibrium
- International trade and comparative advantage
- Externalities and choice under uncertainty
- Risk preference and the market for risk
- Signaling in markets
- Pooling equilibriums
Access the full syllabus here.
Prerequisites
Basic understanding of calculus and familiarity with microeconomics will be helpful for this course. There are no prerequisites, but you may find it helpful to take 14.100x (Microeconomics) before this course.
Course Readiness Check:
Our course readiness checks help you determine if you should review key concepts before starting the course.
Please use this link to access the course readiness check and answer key.
Meet your instructors
David Autor
Ford Professor of Economics
David Autor is Ford Professor in the MIT Department of Economics, co-director of the NBER Labor Studies Program, and co-leader of both the MIT Work of the Future Task Force and the JPAL Work of the Future experimental initiative. His scholarship explores the labor-market impacts of technological change and globalization on job polarization, skill demands, earnings levels and inequality, and electoral outcomes.
Autor has received numerous awards for both his scholarship—the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, the Sherwin Rosen Prize for outstanding contributions to the field of Labor Economics, and the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in 2019—and for his teaching, including the MIT MacVicar Faculty Fellowship. Most recently, Autor received the Heinz 25th Special Recognition Award from the Heinz Family Foundation for his work “transforming our understanding of how globalization and technological change are impacting jobs and earning prospects for American workers”.
