TEMPLE UNIVERSITY

Department of Economics

Fall 1999

The text and its supplements: The text  is a new one for me.   The book is not difficult to read, but you will encounter a lot of new vocabulary.  Create your own glossary by writing definitions in the margins.  At the end of each chapter is a review.  It is good practice to read the review before and after you read the chapter.  There are also review questions at the end of each chapter; read them even if you don't write out answers.  At the very bottom of the page is a link to the publisher's online tutors.  If you are a careful reader with good comprehension and retention skills then you may not find the tutors important. You should have also bought the Logal CD-ROM titled Microeconomics Explorer.  There are references to this multimedia extravaganza in the syllabus.

Course Requirements: There will be a variety of assignments every week. The assignments are shown in the calendar below.  There will be discussion questions, a problem set, and a short quiz each week.  Your course grade will be computed as follows:

Goals of the Course: Microeconomic Principles will acquaint you with some of the basic models used by economists to explain the everyday behavior of individuals and firms. The science of economics is built on a specialized vocabulary. If you don't learn the vocabulary, then you won't learn the science. Mastery of the science of economics will involve learning to manipulate the vocabulary in order to systematically describe behavioral outcomes. We then try to generalize these outcomes as 'laws' or models. The 'laws' of economics are the basis of all of the other business disciplines. Most of the founding and noteworthy scholars in the other disciplines received their initial training in economics.

The fundamental result that you MUST keep with you throughout the rest of your academic and working careers is that firms and individuals make decisions at the margin. That notion was formalized more than 200 years ago by Adam Smith². Adam Smith proposed that we choose that course of action which resulted in the greatest net incremental benefit.  The principle was understood by one of our founding fathers and local luminary, Ben Franklin.  Franklin recommended that one divide a page in half, listing the costs on one side and the benefits on the other. The correct course of action would then be dictated by weighing the costs and benefits and looking for the greatest net gain.

What makes this class different from Econ 52? This is an online class.  We will not have any face to face meetings.  One function of class meetings is to keep the students on track and moving forward.  Another function is to write exams that allow the instructor to assess your performance.  Since we don't have class meetings to exchange ideas I will rely on the weekly discussion questions and problem sets to keep you on track.  These assignments will be available to you throughout the semester so you will be able to do them more or less at your own pace.   The discussion questions and the problem sets are linked to the syllabus provided below.   The quizzes will also be available during the whole semester.  To do the quizzes you will have to go to the official online course web site.

Words to the Wise: Remember that learning is hard work. It can be fun, but it is still hard work. Reading assignments, and homework exercises are all part of the learning process. To paraphrase the wisdom of Confucious:

The dates in the following calendar all fall on a Monday and are to indicate the corresponding week.  Both the discussion questions and the problem sets, where appropriate, are to be emailed to me by Friday at 10 PM of that week.  The quizzes will become available at least by Friday afternoon and must be complete by the following Monday.   For example, during the week of August 30 you should read chapter 1 of the text, read the intro chapter of the electronic text, and work with the Mathview tutuorials.   By Friday, September 3, at 10 PM you should have completed the first discussion questions and emailed them to me ( buck@astro.ocis.templ.edu).   By Monday, September 6, at 10AM you should have completed the online quiz.   That would be the ideal scenario.

As a practical matter, things may work out differently.  Some of you may want to go through the work very quickly.  Others may vary the pace throughout the semester.   To accomodate you all I will accept material at any time.  But, there is one caveat.  You must have everything completed by December 17, 1999.  There will be NO incompletes.

For administrative reasons the online quizzes are not linked to this web page.  To take the online quizzes you will have to go to http://isc.temple.edu/courseinfo .  At the opening page click on the Fox School of Business.  At the next page click on our course: Econ 52 Section 701, Principles of Microeconomics.  You will be asked for your course ID and password.  Then Click on the assignments button so that you can take the quiz.  There is a test quiz set up for you to try. 

Timetable for assignments, readings, and exams
Date	Text Readings	Electronic Text	Other Reading	Mathview	Logal CD-ROM	Discussion Questions	Problem Set
Aug 30	The Scope and Method of Economics, Chapter 1	Introduction		Graphs: Slopes and Intercepts Graphs: Down and to the Right?		Introduction	Introductory Problems
Sept 6	Scarcity and Choice, Chapter 2	Neoclassical Perspective	Opportunity Cost	Production Possibilities Frontiers:Production Possibility Frontiers: Movements and Shifts A video on PPF's.		Scarcity and Choice	Production Possibilities,  and Answer
Sept 13	Demand, Supply and Equilibrium, Chapter 4	Supply and Demand	1. Equilibrium 2. Privatizing PA's Liqour Stores 3. Hog Prices	1. A change in the quantity demanded, 2. A change in the quantity supplied, 3. Find the Equilibrium. 4. A change in demand 5. The effect of a change in demand, on equilibrium 6. A change in supply 7. The effect of a change in supply on equilibrium	Market Analysis	The Price System	Supply and Demand Shifts and Answer Key Equilibrium,  answer key
Sept 20	Further topics in Demand, Supply and Elasticity, Chapter 5	Elasticity	Health Care for the Poor Demand for hotel rooms in Philly Cigarettes	Measuring Consumer Surplus Measuring Producer Surplus The Incidence of Taxation Efficiency and Taxes Elasticity: Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3		Marginal Analysis	Consumer Surplus: Tarif Vert and Answer Key Elasticity,  answer key
Sept 27	Household Behavior and Consumer Choice, Chapter 6	Demand Theory: Part I and Part II		How Many Should You Buy Getting the Most for Your Money	Individual Choice		Utility Maximization and key Indifference Curves: Extra Credit
Oct 4	Production: Behavior of Profit Maximizing Firms, Chapter 7	Production		Production from one variable input	Production and Costs	Real Firms Input Substitution	Production from one input and answer key
Oct 11	Costs and Output Decisions, Chapter 8	Cost and Supply Competition The Notion of Efficiency: Tying some ideas together	Grain: A Homogeneous Good	Fixed, Variable and Total Costs Production, and Average and Marginal Costs Competitive Output	Firm Choices	Competition	The Competitive Paradigm
Oct 18	Monopoly, Chapter 13	Monopoly	Microsoft and Monopoly	Monopoly Output and Price	Monopoly	Monopoly	Price and Output under Monopoly
Oct 25	Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly, Chapter 14	Imperfect Competition and Game Theory	Monopolistic Competition Oligopoly		Startegy and Choice	Oligopoly and Imperfect Competition	A middle ground: Monopolistic Competition
Nov 1	General Equilibrium and the Efficiency of Perfect Competition, Chapter 12						Monopoly, Competition and Regulation
Nov 8	Antitrust and Regulation, Chapter 15		Microsoft's Antitrust Woes The Mock Trial Deregulating Electricity			Antitrust and Regulation	Antitrust or Regulation
Nov 15	Labor and Labor Markets, Chapter 10	Factor Markets	Labor Markets Discrimination in Baseball	Competitive Labor Markets Monopsony	Leisure and Income	Factor Markets	Labor Demand in competitive markets
Nov 22	Labor Markets and Unions, Chapter 19		The Living Wage and Philadelphia				The Demand for Labor in imperfectly competitive markets Wage Determination Review
Nov 29	International Trade, Chapter 21	Trade and Foreign Exchange	Survey:and World Financial Crises A Foreign Trade Primer from the NY Fed. This is like a comic book. Try it, you'll like it. NAFTA after 5 Years   1. Foreign Exchange 2. The Euro 3. The World Financial Crisis of 1998	Importer or Exporter? Absolute and Comparative Advantage The Gains from Trade		Discussing Trade	Two Country Trade: Part 1 Two Country Trade: Part 2

The cartoon near the top is by Tim Bloom and appeared in the NYTimes, 6/11/99.