STEER-ME
Non-strategic microeconomics
STEER-ME covers the microeconomics of settings where nobody acts strategically: each agent takes prices as given and chooses what is best for it. The questions have numerical answers that are worked out from the economics. It is described in the STEER-ME paper (NeurIPS 2025), and a fixed sample of its questions is published as a dataset.
Taxonomy
Browse all elements →Core mathematical skills essential for microeconomic reasoning: the arithmetic, optimization, probability and logic of STEER, extended with basic calculus such as single-variable derivatives and linear systems of equations.
- 1.1Optimization
- 1.2Systems of Equations
- 1.3Derivatives and Homotheticity
- 1.sShared with STEER
Tests an agent's ability to optimally exchange time and money for desired goods and services. The agent is a price taker: it accepts market prices as given rather than forecasting how a purchase might move the market.
- 2.1Properties of Utility Functions
- 2.2Deriving Demand
- 2.3Comparative Statics of Demand
- 2.4Labor Supply
- 2.5Dynamic Consumption Decisions
Tests an agent's ability to decide on the combination of inputs to efficiently produce goods and services to maximize profits.
- 3.1Properties of Production Functions
- 3.2Deriving Factor Demand
- 3.3Comparative Statics with Production
- 3.4Dynamic Production Decisions
Considers consumers and producers who trade with each other. The agent must reason about how the aggregated behaviors of consumers and producers lead to market-clearing prices that balance supply and demand.
- 4.1Consumer Goods Market Aggregation
- 4.2Factor Market Aggregation
- 4.3Prices in Static Market Equilibrium
- 4.4Comparative Statics of Equilibrium Prices
Tests agents on their ability to evaluate whether equilibria are efficient and to analyze the effects of interventions, such as taxes or price ceilings, on welfare.
- 5.1Welfare and Decentralization
- 5.2Welfare Analysis of Market Equilibrium