Structure, Grading, and the Text

Structure of the Web

For most of you this course will be very different from what you are used to because all of the material is on-line which will require a little adjustment in how you work during the semester. The course is divided into three segments, each of which contains units that correspond to chapters in a book.  The three segments are:

Introduction

The Basics of Microeconomics

The Market System

There will be a test at the end of each segment.  The first of these contains Units on Opportunity Cost and Supply and Demand, two basic building blocks for all economics.  For a sense of what you will find, browse one of the opportunity cost examples.  There is also a unit on Data Analysis.  In any economics course there is the question:  How much mathematics?  Mathematics is simply a language, not unlike Japanese or French.   If you want to be an authority on France you will need to be able to communicate in French.  The same would be true in Japan.  If you want to be an authority on economics, you will need to master the language of mathematics since that is the language that economists use. 

Fortunately you do not need sophisticated math skills to understand the basic principles of economics and thus mathematics is not central to this version of introductory economics.  In fact. there are three different kinds of economics - three ways to approach the subject.  I first ran across the three types in the preface to Paul Krugman's book, The Age of Diminished Expectations and most recently in the introduction to Peter Kennedy's book, Macroeconomic Essentials for Media Interpretation.  The three types of economics according to Kennedy are curve shifting, pop art, and media economics.  Krugman refers to the three types as Greek letter, airport, and up-and-down economics. 

The first of these is what many students see in their introductory courses where they have instructors who use intensively the tools of mathematics, where economic principles are presented in the form of equations with Greek letters (a and b) or as graphs where lines are shifted.  At the other end of the spectrum we have the books that you are likely to find in airport bookstores, books that are non technical in nature and have a certain narrow focus that are often selling gloom and doom.

And then there is the media economics that you are likely to see in the business press.  Krugman refers to this as "up-and-down economics" because so many of the stories are about movement of economic variables and the relationship between the movements.  For example, inflation is up which drives up interest rates; interest rates are down which sparks an increase in housing starts; the increase in the balance of trade deficit puts downward pressure on the exchange rate; and the budget deficit is down which increases business spending.  Kennedy includes a second category here - economic policy evaluation - that includes news stories praising or condemning certain public policies.  The stories concerning the Fed's decisions regarding interest rate policy, the privatization of social security, and the establishment of the European common currency fall into this category.

This course is clearly focused on the last of these "types" of economics, although there will be a bit of the first type.  During the semester there will be some times when we will use some formal modeling, but only through graphs.  The best examples are the possibility curve diagrams that we will use to demonstrate choice situations and the supply-demand model of markets.  Generally, however, we will concern ourselves with the world of economics as seen in the business press.

The second two units deal with traditional microeconomics.   In the first unit, The Basics of Microeconomics, we construct the model of a market system by examining models of individual and business behavior.  In the second unit, The Market System, we take a careful look at the situation focusing on some market imperfections and the potential solutions to these imperfections.  After each of these segments there will be an exam. 

There are three components of each unit - Questions of the Day, Overview, and Outline.  The first component is the Questions of the Day.  These are questions which you will be asked to review and answer for each class/unit.  In answering these questions you should read the material in the unit since the questions are related to the economic concepts introduced in the unit.  To get an idea of what you will encounter in the unit you should read the second component, the Overview.  The overview provides a general guide to the concepts that will be introduced in the unit.   The third component is the Outline component - the equivalent of the traditional textbook.  This will be the source for most of your reading during the semester.  There are two major differences between this and a textbook.  The first is that you will be reading the material on-line which will limit your ability to curl up and read this in bed or a comfortable chair.  The second is that the text has many hyperlinks that will direct you to specialized material or material on the WWW.  You may find this difficult at first, but you should become comfortable with this approach before the first exam.

For each Unit there is also a Review Quiz.  Learning to "do economics" is like learning to play tennis, ride a bike, or read - you get better at it if you practice.  The Review Quiz associated with each unit gives you an opportunity to practice, to test your understanding of the concepts and principles introduced in the unit.  

You will also find a considerable amount of additional material on the web that you will want to access during the semester.  The Schedule page should be monitored regularly because this is where you will find the daily schedule of readings, assignments, and questions of the day.  

There are also indexes to web sites that may be of interest to you.  The Information Sources Page contains an index of good sites for finding economic data as well as some newspaper, news, and weather sites.  Finally, there is the Students' Perspective page where you will find work done by students in the class.

The last component is the Answer page.  After each exam, the answer key and a brief description of the correct answer will be posted in the Exam site on this page.  You should check out the answers to determine your grade and make sure that you agree with the answers since there have been instances in the past where students have raised legitimate concerns regarding the answers.  You will also find answers to the Questions of the Day posted after they have been discussed in class.

Evaluation

You will be evaluated on your understanding of a few basic economic principles.  The opportunity to demonstrate your command of these principles will arise continuously throughout the course.  For each class/unit there will be a few questions (Questions of the Day) based on the readings for which you will be responsible.  You should come into class with some prepared thoughts on these questions.  There will also be some assignments and extra credit opportunities where you will be required to hand in some work.  The list of extra credit assignments will change over the semester and you should monitor regularly the Schedule and class e-mail links which will be where these questions will be posted and where you are expected to post your work.  This is the only place where they will be recorded, so you will need to monitor the site. Your first assignment is to log into the course and send me an e-mail using the course e-mail link.

In addition to the class participation /extra credit assignments, there will also be three semester exams and a final exam. The exams in this course will focus primarily on your skill at applying the principles discussed in the course rather than on your recall skills.  Before you take the first test you should review the first test from a previous year.  This will give you a better idea of what to expect which should help reduce the surprise effect on that first exam - and improve your grade.  

Each of you will be expected to read on a regular basis at least some sections of the Wall Street Journal and you can expect some questions to be on your readings. There will also be a few assignments during the semester.   One of these assignments will be to find a company and follow the performance of the company's stock.  You will be asked to identify an industry that you would like to know more about, possibly an industry where you will be looking for employment once you graduate, and conduct some research in which you explore the prospects for the industry and a major firm in the industry. 

Text

You should also note that there is not a textbook and that all of the material that you will need is available on-line.  There is, however, a cost to keeping the system current so you will be asked to pay $20 for expenses associated with the maintenance of the web and class materials.  This will be collected during the first week of classes to activate the courseware.