Students are expected to read & understand their book & class notes. Students should also review the relevant questions contained on the comprehensive finals from the spring & fall of 1997. Here is a checklist containing most of the topics you should have mastered:

Review sheet may not be completely up-to-date until 2 days before the exam!

Consumer Choice

• Total & marginal utility
• Law of  diminishing MU and Demand
• Consumer surplus
• Utility Maximization Rule for 1 good
• Utility Maximization Rule for many goods
• Relationship between marginal and total

Inputs, Production, & Costs

• Long Run vs. Short Run
• Production function 
• TPP, MPP
• Law of Diminishing Marginal Productivity
• Optimal Input Rule for one Input
• FC, VC, TC, MC, AFC, etc.
• Relation between marginal & total (verbally, graphically, mathematically)
• Relation between marginal and average
• Relation between productivity and costs
• IRS, CRS, DRS
• MRP
• Optimal input rule for multiple inputs 

Output & Pricing

• One decision, not two
• Profit Maximization Rule
• Profit Maximization on a TR, TC graph and on a MR, MC graph
• Relation between total & marginal
• Marginal analysis  & MB = MC as a general tool

Perfect Competition

• Defining Assumptions
• Price taker
• Special case of MR = P
• SR equilibrium; profits, losses
• Shut-down rule
• SR supply curve for perfectly competitive firm
• LR adjustments; LR equilibrium
• Normal economic profit
• LR Industry supply

The Case for the Market

• Social goals versus individual goals
• Three efficiency criteria
• Multi-layered significance of  LR equilibrium for the perfectly competitive firm
• Allocatively efficeint price; problems with price being too high or too low

Monopoly

• Assumptions
• Barriers to entry (Different types)
• SR & LR equilibrium
• Implications for profits & efficiency
• Demand & MR
• Demand, MR, & elasticity
• Compared to perfect competition
• Natural monopoly
• Price discrimination