Here are most of the lecture notes for the course. For the first half of the course we have firms and markets structures and for the second half of the course consumer choice.
In the meantime, here is an article from the newspaper about a recent Supreme Court concerning the application of antitrust laws to professional sports.
Finally, one more application of basic economics ideas. The article is titled “I, Pencil”
We have an exam coming this week.
I have added some lecture notes to supplement your own.
Microeconomics Firms and Markets
International Trade: Trade Assumptions
International Trade: Chapters 2, 3
Concerning the exams, everything listed on the syllabus or covered in class may be on the exam. You are permitted to bring a calculator, but you may NOT use any communication device for any reason whatsoever. I suggest that you bring colored pens or pens for the graphs.
Here are the final set of lecture notes for consumer theory. In general the notes are more detailed than necessary for this course, but they are, by and large, appropriate for an introductory microeconomics course at the university level.
Lecture Notes
New!
Here is a brief summary of the course.microeconomics-review-guide
Please understand that it is considered to be plagiarism and a violation of the student conduct code to use other people’s words and ideas without giving the author appropriate credit. You are expected to be able to read the textbook, lecture notes, and other sources and synthesize the various words and thoughts into your OWN WORDS. If you use the words (or sentences) from another author without providing the source (and use quotation marks to indicate someone else’s contribution) then you are being dishonest and a thief. DO NOT PLAGIARIZE.
If you need clarification, I will again offer to clarify the issue.
Please watch a movie and write an economic report of the movie. The written papers will be due to me on Tuesday 27 April. The total assignment is worth 100 points. The final paper should be between 2 and 4 pages.
Beside a brief description of the movie, I’d like to know about the major economic themes in the movie. What are the major economic themes and the economic explanation of the character’s actions. Are there some economic fallacies presented and embraced? You might need to look at the 8 key concepts in economics from the first few lectures of the semester (property rights, opportunity costs, imperfect information, marginal costs and benefits, et c.).
For example, consider the movie Grosse Point Blank, some of the major economic themes involve unionization (cartels), monopoly pricing, individual v. joint production, property rights, profit sharing, worker incentives, and changes in preferences. Along the lines of property rights, there is discussion about some things not being for sale–there should not be a market for services that are considered immoral.
Let me encourage you to not rely too much on preferences. They explain everything and nothing. Characters don’t simply take an action because they prefer to. Look at the incentives for the action and if preferences seemed to have changed, ask if the character is changing his time-horizon, re-assessing benefits, or responding to changes in costs. Sometimes there is conflict due to characters having different preferences–how is it resolved?
If there is violence in the movie, such as in drug or mob movies, why isn’t the market mechanism working? For example, if there is a new competitor for drugs, why do prices of the incumbents simply not decrease? Violence is another way of allocating scarce resources, but it is not the market system.
In addition to the written assignment, I will ask you to post on this site a 1-2 sentence summary of your main finding.
Here is a link to the NY Fed’s mini-conference on Fed policy, The Federal in the 21st Century.
Paper #2 is worth up to 75 points of your grade (7.5%). It is on the topic of your choice, but I want you to develop a testable hypothesis of international trade. You need to move beyond the “What” questions and ask “Why.” Then come up with a list of the other contributing factors (all of the other explanations). Then you need to collect data on all of these variables. Then establish an empirical method to analyze the data, such as a regression. To run the regression, I suggest that you invest in a copy of Stata. Let me know if you need any help in running the regression or interpreting the results.
Once you’ve done the work, you need to write it up for others to read what you’ve done. The guiding principles in your paper are transparency and that it is replicable. You need to divulge what you’ve done and exactly how you’ve done it such that one could produce the same results only from reading your paper.
The form should be an introductory paragraph on why this is an interesting question, then your hypothesis, then your data sources and methods, followed by your empirical results. Finally you should draw out your conclusions and summarize what you’ve done. [You can also add in a literature review after your hypothesis.] The entire paper should be approximately 4-6 pages, plus any figures or tables.
Here’s an article about the potential effects of the imbalances in the Chinese economy.
Fair Trade Coffee: Voluntary payment to help the poor or a marketing gimmick?
International Coffee Association
Fair Trade Coffee Certification from Fair Trade
A research project from the Mercatus Center by Colleen Berndt “Does Fair Trade Coffee Help the Poor?” Mercatus Center Policy Series, #11.
Guatemala Coffee Producers
Here’s a link to Vanderbilt University’s Institute for Coffee Studies
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