Problem Set 1. Economics 1010a (Miron) . Fall 2011.

Due Tuesday, September 6th, at 10:00 AM in Harvard Hall 102

All problem sets will contain questions from the workbook and additional questions that are less structured. Please show your work to get
full credit. The problem sets may contain optional questions; you are encouraged to try these, but they will not count towards your problem set
grades. Those optional questions are usually the first questions in each
chapter of the workbook. Answers to the problem sets will be posted on
the course web site on Tuesday afternoons.
The grading system for the problem sets is as follows. If you do not
turn in a problem set, you will receive a zero. If a problem set suggests
only a minimal effort, you will receive a 1. If a problem set suggests a
good faith effort but limited success, you will receive a 2. If a problem
set is well done (even if not perfect), you will receive a 3. Most grades
will be 2 or 3. The crucial benefit of doing the problem sets is that the
exam questions will be similar to the problem sets. You may seek help
from anyone you wish, but you will learn the material better if you first
attempt the problems on your own.
1. Read either the course lecture notes titled Review of Calculus Tools or
Sections A.1-A.10 and A.12 of the Math Appendix in the textbook.
2. Graph the following functions: (Note: when you sketch a curve, the idea is to
produce all the necessary information that others would need to reproduce the exact
curve. Therefore you need to do the following: label the axes, label the curve(s), mark
the slope, and mark the important coordinates, especially the intercepts)
3
x8
4
y = ln x
y = |2x 6|
y =

3. Compute the derivatives of the following functions:

f (x) = 7x
f (x) = 3x2 + ln 2x
f (x) = x0.7
1

4. Let f (x) = 5x2 and g(x) = ln x.

Compute the derivatives of h(x) = f (x)g(x) and k(x) = f (g(x)).
5. Optimization:
a) Find the maximum of
y = 2x2 3x + 5
b) Find the maximum of
y = x3
c) Find the maximum of
y = |x + 1|
d) Calculate the derivative of y respect to both x and z for
y = 10x ln z 5xz 3
In the Workbook:
Chapter 1: Problem 1, 3, 5