CS395 (Computational Aspects of Economics)
Spring 2007, Carleton College


[Jump to current week]

Basic information:

Announcements:

Resources:

Course Materials:

Week 0:
There is a form for office-hours scheduling available. Please fill it out by Tuesday, 20 March 2007, and I'll schedule office hours soon thereafter. (Be sure to include your email address!)
Week 1: introduction to game theory
Week 2: game theory, computation of equilibria
Problem Set #1 (the donor game) is due on Monday.
Problem Set #2 (computation of various types of equilibria) is due on Wednesday. You should have been assigned a partner by email last Friday; let me know you didn't get a note.
Week 3: auctions
Problem Set #3 (Nash equilibria for two-by-two two-player games) is due on Monday.
If you're looking for more Python references, a good place to look is the online book Dive Into Python.
Problem Set #4 (correlated equilibria for a participation game) is due on Friday.
Week 4: auctions and matching markets
Problem Set #5 (third-price sealed-bid auctions) is due on Wednesday.
Week 5: matching markets
A one-page single-spaced written summary of the Gale–Shapley paper is due on Monday. (See Michael Mitzenmacher's notes on reading research papers.)
Week 6: more matching markets and more auctions
A one-page single-spaced written summary of the Edelman–Ostrovsky–Schwarz paper is due on Wednesday.
Week 7: network effects
A form for submitting your bids for final project presentations has been posted. You should fill it out by Friday, 11 May 2007, at 11:59p. I'll schedule presentations and let you know the schedule early next week.
Week 8: network effects; the cost of selfish agents
Problem Set #6 (erroneous cascades) is due on Monday.
Week 9: the cost of selfish agents; project presentations
By 11:59p on Sunday, 20 May 2007, email me a plain-text outline of your paper.
Week 10: project presentations
By 11:59p on Sunday, 27 May 2007, email me a PDF of a draft of your paper.
The last assignment of the term, to rewrite the course description (100 words or fewer, though justifications beyond that word count are welcome) and describe the appropriate prerequisites for the class, is due on Wednesday.
Finals Period:
By 7:00p on Sunday, 3 June 2007, submit to me the final paper in hard copy.