Economics

ECON 136:  Week 7 Tasks

A underlying theme for this week is the difference between private and public.   When is/should a transaction between two individuals purely a matter for the two of them and when does a wider community have a stake in the transaction?    In the latter case, how does the wider community allocate resources to promoting/protecting its interests?

Monday:  Externalities

Preparing for class:

All:       Read Taylor Ch. 14, pp. 259-263

            Watch Khan Academy video on Negative Externalities

Non-360 Students:   Review you notes  from Friday’s class.   Be prepared to explain how taxation to fund amenities in the consumption of a good or service could be economically efficient.

ECON 136:  Week 6 Tasks

Monday:  Taxing Market Outcomes

Preparing for class:

Read Taylor ch. 4, p. 71 (if unclear, read pp. 64-71) and pp, 74-81

Now watch this short video             http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uMQfMVDYB0

Listen to the Planet Money podcast

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/02/07/273060341/episode-516-why-paying-192-for-a-5-mile-car-ride-may-be-rational

As you do so, try to visualize the shifts in supply and demand that motivate Uber’s strategy

Before you retire Tuesday night (or by 3am  Wednesday)

            Complete the Taxing Market Outcomes problem set in Sapling Learnin

Wednesday:  Midterm Review        

            Preparing for Class

ECON 136:  Week 5 Tasks 

Monday:  Catch Up Class

I worry that we’ve been pressing too much.   I want a chance to address any technical glitches you’ve run into in working with your preferred spreadsheet, drawing and word processing software.   I want to finish talking about the gains from voluntary exchange and I want to get your thoughts about the economic way of inducing cooperative resource allocation. 

Preparing for class:

Review your notes, make progress on Opportunity Cost paper  due Wednesday night.

Wednesday:  Demand and Surplus         

            Preparing for Class

            Read Taylor Ch. 8, pp. 154-158

            Read Taylor Ch. 4, pp.  59-64, 81-82

Before you retire Tuesday night (or by 3am  Wednesday)

            Complete the Demand and Surplus problem set in Sapling Learning 

By Wednesday night (or 3am Thursday), save your Opportunity Cost Memo (assignment attached) to your class Dropbox folder 

Friday:    Supply, profit and rent 

ECON 136:  Week 4 Tasks

Monday:  Choice & Opportunity Cost

Preparing for class:

In Sapling Learning, read Taylor, Ch. 2, pp. 15-18 and 26-33 

If so inclined, you might think about how to draw a budget line or a production possibility frontier in your word processor, spreadsheet or drawing program.

Before you retire Sunday night (or by 3am  Monday)

            Complete the Choice and Opportunity Cost problem set in Sapling Learning

Wednesday:  On the Gains from Voluntary Exchange

            Preparing for Class

            In Sapling Learning, read

                        Taylor Ch. 3, pp. 39-52; and

Taylor Chapter 8 Appendix, pp. 689-696 (It appears as A8 toward the very end of all the Taylor Chapters)

Think about how you might use indifference curves and PPF diagrams to illustrate an explanation of the gains from trade

Reading through the tasks David assigned for this week, I was intrigued by his mention of alternative measures of welfare, including Bhutan's Gross National Happiness Index. My brother-in-law, an environmental consultant in Portland, Oregon, was happy to point out that ideas like this get taken seriously in Oregon (did you know this, Lisa?). Another brother-in-law, a Maine environmentalist, called my attention to two other rankings of national happiness, apparently inspired by Bhutan's index, but using different criteria. The "domains" used in the U.N. study appear to be primarily the conventional economic ones; i.e. rich and ecologically wasteful countries rank high (U.S. 17th behind other developed countries), while the New Economics Foundation's Happy Planet Index gives more attention to ecology; e.g. how much happiness is currently achieved at the expense of future generations (U.S. ranks 114th; 9 of top 10 are Caribbean basin nations, with Costa Rica #1).

ECON 136:  Week 3 Tasks

With the snow, I'm just shifting back our tasks by one class meeting (except for the short paper due Monday night).   Wednesday and Friday we meet in Dalton 25 at 10:10.

Monday:  Snow Day II

Monday night:

Profiling Your Community Assignment due in your Dropbox folder before you retire (or by 3am Tuesday)

Wednesday:  Environmental Services

Preparing for class:

Read Tietenberg – Valuing the Environment (Tietenberg, T. and L. Lewis (2009).  Environmental & Natural Resource Economics.  8th ed.  Boston:  Pearson, 14-16) and

EE – Ecosystem Services (Daly, H.E. an J. Farley (2011)  Ecological Economics.  2nd ed. Washington  Island Press, 103-110 & 461)

Things to think about:

An environmental economist places the economy inside the environment; an ecologist sees the economy as part of an interrelated whole.   What do we gain or lose by focusing on one approach or the other?

ECON 136:  Week 2 Tasks

Monday (postponed from January 24):   Community Profiles:  Counting what we can Measure

Preparing for class:

Take a few minutes to brainstorm a list of the sort of facts you would want to know about a community you might be visiting or where a friend lives.  The rest of your preparation will consist of looking at what others think is important to note about communities.   Note on the sheet with your list those items you did not include and items and items others failed to include.

Read this profile of Camden’s Water Front South neighborhood http://www.heartofcamden.org/publish/community_about.html

which our Eco-Literacy 360 group visited on Monday.

Read the attached profile of West Nottingham Township, where David Ross lives

Go to http://factfinder2.census.gov, enter West Nottingham township, Chester County, Pennsylvania in the search box and note the sort of community data collected by the US Census Bureau.

After Class:

Start thinking about the Profiling Your Community Assignment (attached) due February 3.  

Wednesday:  On Quantitative Reasoning:  Playing with Numbers and Computers

Preparing for class:  Before you retire Tuesday night (or by 3am Wednesday morning)

Register for the Sapling Learning Course by following the procedure described in the  Accessing Sapling Learning Course and e-Text handout below.

Under Introduction to Sapling Learning, watch the video and complete the Using the tools in Sapling Learning to get a sense of how the online homework engine works.

Now complete the Math Review problem set.   It’s really misnamed:  It’s not so much a review as an opportunity for me to assess strengths and areas  for attention going into class on Wednesday and going forward this semester.    Any reference to “grades” should be ignored (at least in terms of the factors I’ll use to evaluate your performance in this course).

If you are comfortable bringing your laptop or iPad with you to class, please do so.   If not, I'll have access to a computer available for you (but you'll need to be able to log in to your Bryn Mawr or Haverford accounts).

Friday:   Community Profiles:  Counting what we can Measure

Preparing for class:

5/2:  Added link to Moodle for the Final Memorandum

ECON 136:  Working with Economic Data:  Valuing the Environment

I change my office hours each week (I try to post Friday afternoon), if none of those hours work for you, please email with all the times that might work for you.