Microeconomics
Microeconomics
Microeconomics is the social science that studies the implications of incentives and decisions, specifically about how those affect the utilization and distribution of resources.
Microeconomics shows how and why different goods have different values, how individuals and businesses conduct and benefit from efficient production and exchange, and how individuals best coordinate and cooperate with one another. Microeconomics provides a more complete and detailed understanding than macroeconomics.
Researchers
Katherine Cuff
Managing Editor, Canadian Journal of Economics | McMaster University Scholar | CESifo Research Network Fellow | Professor
Seungjin Han
Professor
My unified research theme is the development of robust competition models and their applications in various economic problems such as competing mechanism games, monotone signaling equilibrium design in two-sided matching with incomplete information, asymmetric auction design, policy analysis on corporate tax competition, childcare benefit, etc.
Bradley Ruffle
Academic Director, McMaster Decision Science Laboratory (McDSL) | Professor
I am a behavioural and experimental economist. Broadly speaking, my research interests revolve around understanding human decision-making in economically interesting, usually strategic, situations. Some of the specific questions my research addresses include: what types of group rituals promote in-group cooperation? Are large industrial buyers able to counteract monopoly power? Are physically attractive job candidates more likely to be hired? Can insurance companies pre-fill fields on a claims form to reduce insurance fraud? Do people actually make the same labour-leisure and purchase choices when faced with theoretically equivalent taxes? Why do people still give in-kind gifts rather than cash or gift cards?
One current research project explores whether better alternatives exist to the matching mechanism that university and college co-op programs employ to match students to jobs. Another project explores whether the people who pay more for insurance feel more entitled to cheat when filing an insurance claim.
Ryan Bacic
PhD Student
My research in the field of labour economics primarily examines the economics of education. Specifically, I examine the post-secondary education market (with respect to applications to programs, impact of majors on earnings, and gender equality in post-secondary education), and education outcomes among primary and high school students.
My work has thus far examined the gender gap in applications to male-dominated STEM programs (specifically Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science) and the difference in scores on provincial-wide tests across student groups in British Columbia. Outside of education, I have interests in the gender wage gap, racial inequality in employment outcomes, and wage differentials across industries.
Andrew Leal
PhD Student
Alex Sam
PhD Student
Microeconomic Theory, Information Theory, Industrial Organization and Game Theory are my main research interests. In particular, I am interested in studying how acquisition and/or disclosure of information by economic agents affects market prices, wages, and general welfare. The topics include Information Design, Signaling, Economics of Privacy, Digital economy, Strategic Communication, and Markets with Asymmetric Information.