PhD Courses in Denmark

Faculty

Head of Department Alexander Christopher Sebald (ACS)
Department of Economics, CBS

Associate Professor Karol Szwagrzak (KS)
Department of Economics, CBS

Professor Lars Peter Østerdal (LPO) 
University of the Faroe Islands, Faculty of History and Social Sciences

Associate Professor Anette Boom (AB)
Department of Economics, CBS

Prerequisite

The course is compulsory for the PhD students of Copenhagen Business School’s Department of Economics, but also open to other PhD students with knowledge of intermediate microeconomics, some econometrics, as well as mathematical tools like multivariate calculus, constrained maximization, and linear algebra, and basic probability and statistics.

Duration

The teaching starts on September 15, 2026, in week 38 with an introduction and another session on September 18, two sessions (September 21, and 24), in week 39 and one session in week 41 (October 6). It then continues from week 46 until week 49 (see the details in the attached lecturing plan). The final session will be on January 29, 2027, where the students present their previously handed in research proposals and get feedback from their co-students and the teachers in the class.

Aim of the Course and Learning Objectives

After the course, students shall be able to:

• understand the role of economic theory in cutting-edge research across all fields of economics,

• demonstrate knowledge of the concepts, models, methods and tools of advanced microeconomic theory as discussed during the course,

• read and understand international research papers expanding the frontier of microeconomic research,

• apply, adapt, and develop advanced microeconomic models to specific research questions,

• and evaluate microeconomic models used by other scholars.

Course content

The aim of the course is to get the students acquainted with the most important models and methods used in advanced microeconomic theory to enable them to apply these models and methods later in their own research. This is done by introducing the students to either very influential and/or recent academic research.

The course covers the following topics:

1.       Choice Theory (Revealed preference, Uncertainty, Risk, Time preferences, Stochastic choice),
2.       Social Welfare,
3.       Game Theory,
4.       Mechanism Design and Contract Theory.

Teaching methods

Lectures and student workshops.

Assessment

Attendance is obligatory. To pass the course, students have to master three different tasks in a satisfactory manner with the possibility of retaking each of them once.

1.      The students must hand in a research proposal (approximately 10 pages) based on the microeconomic theory, taught in class. The hand-in date for the research proposal is January 16, 2027. The students must present their research proposal and discuss it with the teachers and their co-students in a convincing way in the final session of the course on January 29, 2027.

2.      They must present one academic research article, mentioned in the list for potential presentations, and comment on the research article presentation of another student in class.

3.      They must write a referee report (approximately 4 pages) on an unpublished microeconomic theory paper of their own choice and hand it in until December 31, 2026.

Course literature (Indicative)

Selected Chapters from:

• Bolton, Patrick and Mathias Dewatripont (2005), Contract Theory, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.

• Chambers, Christopher P. and Federico Echenique (2016), Revealed Preference Theory, Econometric Society Monograph, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK. (available online in the CBS library)

• Gilboa, Itzhak (2009), Theory of Decision under Uncertainty, Econometric Society Monographs 45, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (available online in the CBS library)

• Jackson, Matthew O., Mechanism Theory (December 26, 2014). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2542983 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2542983

• Krishna, Vijay (2010), Auction Theory, Second Edition, Academic Press: Amsterdam et al.

• Mas-Colell, Andreu, Michael D. Whinston and Jerry R. Green (1995), Microeconomic Theory, Oxford University Press: New York and Oxford.

• Moulin, Hervé (1988), Axioms of Cooperative Decision Making, Econometric Society Monographs 15, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (available online in the CBS library)

• Osborne, Martin and Ariel Rubinstein (1994), A Course in Game Theory, MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.

• Strzalecki, Tomasz (2023), Stochastic Choice Theory, Harvard University monograph (available online)

Selected Journal Articles

Teaching hours

The class includes 44 confrontation hours.

Lecturing Plan