IIT JAM Economics (EN) 2025: Exam Date, Syllabus, Question Papers, Important Topics

Consumer theory

Preference, utility, and representation theorem, budget constraint, choice, demand (ordinary and compensated), Slutsky equations, choice under risk and uncertainty, revealed preference axioms

Production, costs with perfectly competitive markets

Technology, isoquants, production with one and more variable inputs, returns to scale, short run and long run costs, cost curves in the short run and long run, perfect competition in markets

General equilibrium and welfare

Equilibrium and efficiency under pure exchange and production, welfare economics, theorems of welfare economics

Market structure

Monopoly, pricing with market power, price discrimination (first, second and third), monopolistic competition and oligopoly

Game theory

Strategic form games, Nash equilibrium, mixed extension and mixed strategy Nash equilibrium, iterated elimination of dominated strategies, examples: Cournot, Bertrand duopolies, Prisoner’s dilemma, cooperative game theory: Shapley value, Nash bargaining

Public goods and market failure

Externalities, public goods and markets with asymmetric information (adverse selection and moral hazard), VCG mechanism and transfer rules

National Income Accounting

Structure, key concepts, measurements, and circular flow of income - for a closed and open economy, money, fiscal and foreign sector variables - concepts and measurements

Behavioral and Technological Functions

Consumption functions - absolute income hypothesis, life-cycle, and permanent income hypothesis, investment functions- Keynesian, money demand and supply functions, production function

Business Cycles and Economic Models

Business cycles-facts and features, the Classical model of the business cycle. the Keynesian model of the business cycle, simple Keynesian cross model of income and employment determination and the multiplier (in a closed economy), IS-LM Model, Hicks’ IS-LM synthesis, role of monetary and fiscal policy

Business Cycles and Economic Models (Open Economy)

Open economy, Mundell-Fleming model, Keynesian flexible price (aggregate demand and aggregate supply) model, role of monetary and fiscal policy

Inflation and Unemployment

Inflation - theories, measurement, causes, and effects, Unemployment -types, measurement, causes, and effects

Growth Models

Harrod-Domar, Solow and Neoclassical growth models

Probability Theory

Sample space and events, axioms of probability and their properties, conditional probability and Bayes’ rule, independent events, random variables and probability distributions, expectation, variance and higher order moments, functions of random variables, properties of commonly used discrete and continuous distributions, density and distribution functions for jointly distributed random variables, mean and variance of jointly distributed random variables, covariance and correlation coefficients.

Mathematical Statistics

Random sampling, types of sampling, point and interval estimation, estimation of population parameters using methods of moments and maximum likelihood procedures, properties of estimators, sampling distribution, confidence intervals, central limit theorem, law of large numbers.

Hypothesis Testing

Distributions of test statistics, testing hypotheses related to population parameters, Type I and Type II errors, the power of a test, tests for comparing parameters from two samples.

Correlation and Regression

Correlation and types of correlation, the nature of regression analysis, method of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), CLRM assumptions, properties of OLS, goodness of fit, variance and covariance of OLS estimator.

Indian economy before 1950

Transfer of tribute, deindustrialization of India

Planning and Indian development

Planning models, relation between agricultural and industrial growth, challenges faced by Indian planning

Indian economy after 1991

Balance of payments crisis in 1991, major aspects of economic reforms in India after 1991, reforms in trade and foreign investment

Banking, finance and macroeconomic policies

Aspects of banking in India, CRR and SLR, financial sector reforms in India, fiscal deficit, savings and investment rates in India

Inequalities in social development

India’s achievements in health, education and other social sectors, disparities between Indian States in human development

Poverty

Methodology of poverty estimation, Issues in poverty estimation in India

India’s labour market

Unemployment, labour force participation rates

Preliminaries and Functions of one real variable

a. Set theory and number theory, Graphs, elementary types of functions: quadratic, polynomial, power, exponential, logarithmic, sequences and series: convergence, algebraic properties and applications b. Continuous functions: characterisations, properties with respect to various operations and applications c. Differentiable functions: characterisations, properties with respect to various operations and applications d. Second and higher order derivatives: properties and applications

Single-variable optimization

Geometric properties of functions: convex functions, their characterisations and applications, local and global optima: geometric and calculus-based characterisations, and applications.

Linear algebra

Vector spaces - algebraic and geometric properties, scalar products, norms, orthogonality, linear transformations: properties, matrix representations and elementary operations, systems of linear equations: properties of their solution sets, determinants: characterisation, properties and applications

Functions of several real variables

Geometric representations - graphs and level curves, differentiable functions: characterisations, properties with respect to various operations and applications, second order derivatives: properties and applications, the implicit function theorem, and application to comparative statics problems, homogeneous and homothetic functions: characterisations and applications

Multivariate optimization

Convex sets, geometric properties of functions: convex functions, their characterisations, properties and applications, further geometric properties of functions: quasi-convex functions, their characterisations, properties and applications, unconstrained optimisation: geometric characterisations, characterisations using calculus and applications, constrained optimi- 33 sation with equality constraints: geometric characterisations, Lagrange characterisation using calculus and applications, properties of value function: envelope theorem and applications

Linear programming

Graphical solution, matrix formulation, duality, economic interpretation

Integration, differential equations, and difference equations

Definite integrals, indefinite integrals, and economic applications, first order difference equations, equilibrium and its stability, first order differential equations, phase diagrams, and stability

Total No. of Questions

60 Questions

Total Marks

100 Marks

Total Sections

3 Sections (A-B-C)

Type of Questions

Section A has 30 Multiple Choice Questions

Section B has 10 Multiple Select Questions

Section C has 20 Numerical type Questions

Marking Scheme

Negative marking for section A

No negative marking for sections B & C.

IIT JAM Economics Question Paper 2023

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IIT JAM Economics Question Paper 2021

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