CORRESPONDENCE COURSE: Principles of Microeconomics
(ECON% 201)
INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL COURSE INFORMATION
INSTRUCTOR: Jim Hubert
OFFICE: 301 Fine Arts Building
PHONE: 587 2037
E-MAIL: jhubert@sccd.ctc.edu
HOMEPAGE: my homepage
COURSE
HOMEPAGE: ECON% 201
Correspondence
OFFICE HOURS: 10:00 – 10:50 and by appointment
TEXT(s): MICROECONOMICS: The
Economic Way of Thinking, Paul Heyne, 5th Edition
ECONOMICS OF PUBLIC ISSUES, North et
al, 16th Edition
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
ECONOMICS
The Theory of
Economics does not furnish a body of settled conclusions immediately applicable
to policy. It is a method rather than a doctrine, an apparatus of the mind, a technique
of thinking which helps its
possessor to draw correct conclusions.
John Maynard Keynes
Economics is the
study of how to best allocate scarce resources among competing uses: guns or butter types of questions.
MICROECONOMICS, ECON% 201
Economics 201, a
microeconomics course, focuses on the activities of individual units within the
economy - the firm and the individual consumer. Topics to be discussed include:
ethics, scarcity, supply and demand, the market mechanism, prices, factors of
production, the theory of the firm, and a variety of current issues such as
minimum wage laws, rent control, pollution, divorce and abortion. In this course we will attempt to relate
economic theory to the real world - the world of people and businesses making
decisions.
The course has been
divided into 14 parts or lessons, a mid-term exam and a final exam. Each lesson is associated with a like
numbered chapter in the principle textbook: Microeconomics: The Economic Way
of Thinking.
COURSE GOALS:
1. To achieve a fundamental understanding of
microeconomic
theory, concepts and terminology.
2. To be able to interpret and analyze economic
data.
3. Develop an independent ability to apply
economic tools in critical thinking about "real world" issues.
4. Develop an understanding of social
interactions, implications and responsibility.
5. To be prepared for advanced economic
courses.
COURSE PREREQUISITES:
The formal
prerequisites for this Principles of Microeconomics course are ECON% 202 or ENG
101 and MATH 101.
HOMEWORK:
Homework papers are
to be typewritten (double-spaced), on 8 1/2 x 11 paper, and identified with
course number, name, date and assignment number. Grammar and spelling will be included in the grading
algorithm. Graphs are to be neatly
drawn with a straight edge.
EXAMS:
The midterm exam will
cover chapters 1 - 9 in the Heyne Text; the final exam will cover chapters 10 -
15 in the Heyne Text and The Economics of Public Issues reader.
The midterm exam
consists of 50 multiple-choice questions.
The final exam consists of 40 multiple-choice equations and two short
essay questions, which cover The Economics of Public Issues. These are closed-book exams, with no notes
allowed. You will have 90 minutes to
complete each exam. Each exam is worth
100 points.
Please bring pencils
to the exams. You may need a
straightedge or ruler for the final exam.
GRADING:
POINTS:
Mid-term Exam 100 points
Final Exam 100
points
-------------------------------
Total 200 points
* All homework must be
satisfactorily completed in order to receive a passing grade.
GRADE SCHEDULE:
GRADE MINIMUM % OF TOTAL POINTS
3.5
91 %
2.5
77 %
1.5
63 %
0.7
51 %
0.0
Less than 51 %
READINGS:
The textbook and
reading assignments represent your main learning tools. It should be noted that these readings are
college level, that is, challenging.
Reading
"tips": Identify economic
concepts, theories and terminology.
Relate these to examples and applications shown in each chapter. Generalize these concepts and theories to
other applications based on your own life experiences and observations.
Finally, test your understanding by answering all of the questions at
the end of each chapter. Application of
the theory, that is, economic analysis of issues and problems is the key to
understanding. A solution set for the
end-of-chapter questions is available for purchase.
Example: The concept of opportunity cost is addressed
in lesson three. (Opportunity Cost is
the value of the next best alternative forgone.) The textbook illustrates the concept by examining what a student
"gives up" or sacrifices by going to a movie: studying for a Russian
test, watching television, and so forth.
At the end of the chapter the following question is posited: Explain the
following statement by a military recruiter:
"There's nothing like a good recession to cure our recruiting
problems." The statement can be
explained in terms of decreased opportunity costs for labor during a recession.
The Economics of
Public Issues material will be covered in the final exam. It is suggested that you begin reading this
text after the midterm exam. Apply the
same reading and analytical process described above. Again, apply your understanding by answering the questions at the
end of each chapter.
LESSONS:
Lesson one, which
covers Heyne chapter one, involves such issues as social cooperation, rules of the
game, the economic way of thinking, individual as the
decision maker, and
choice. What motivates individual
choice?
Example: When Mother Teresa accepted the Nobel Prize
for Peace in October 1979 and decided to use the $190,000 award to construct a
leprosarium, was she acting in her own interest? Was she behaving selfishly?
Lecture Lesson One:
As a part of
Lesson 1’s material, please consider the following excerpt taken from A Road to Serfdom 1:
“Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another. But if we face a monopolist we are at his mercy.”
1The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich a. Hayek, the University of
Chicago Press, 1944, page 93
Relate Hayek’s
notion of the importance of choice
to Heyne’s discussion of the “rules of the game” and economic behavior in
chapter one.
Note: We, you and
I, make decisions within an institutional framework * or “rules of the
game.” So do business firms,
nonprofits, and the government. So then
all economic decisions are made within this institutional framework – both
formal and informal, that sets limits, provides incentives and disincentives,
creates and maintains enforcement, etc.
* Constitutions,
rules, regulations, laws, mores, conventions, ethics, values, religious
factors, and so on help to craft our options and choices
Learning Objectives
The student must
achieve a fundamental understanding (both concept and application) of the
following:
Reading Assignment
Read chapter 1
(The Economic Way of Thinking) in the Heyne textbook.
(Hint: I suggest
reading the chapter at least twice.
Outlining seems to help as well.)
Please note that you are reading in preparation for the Lesson One
Practice Test and the midterm exam. You
will be held responsible for all material
in the chapter.
Homework Assignment
Note: The homework
problem sets, Questions for Discussion,
are found at the back of each of the first fourteen chapters in the Heyne
textbook. (There is no Questions for Discussion section in
chapter fifteen.)
Chapter one Questions for Discussion: 3, 4, 5, and 11
Practice Test
Take and grade the
Lesson One Practice Test. Review any
questions that you missed on the test and determine the source of your
difficulty.
Chapter Two
introduces the concept of demand, substitutes, price elasticity, and
receipts. Note: It is important to
recognize and understand the difference between demand and quantity demanded. Many students have some difficulty in
understanding the important distinction between these two concepts.
The graph as a method
of analysis is introduced. In order to
gain a competency in graphing the student must practice (and then practice some
more).
Example: John loves butter and thinks that margarine
tastes like soap. George can't tell the
difference. Whose demand for butter is
likely to be more elastic? (Elasticity is a measure of responsiveness or
sensitivity to price changes.)
Lecture Lesson Two:
As a part of Week
Two’s material, please consider the notion that “scarcity implies competition.” What
are the implications of this concept?
What form might the competition take?
(We might ask the people of Kuwait about force as a means of competing
for oil.)
Learning Objectives
The student must
achieve a fundamental understanding of the following:
Reading Assignment:
Read Chapter 2
(Substitutes Everywhere: The Concept of Demand) in the Heyne text. You will be
held responsible for all material in
the two chapters. Remember that you are
reading in preparation for the Lesson Two Practice Test and, eventually, the
midterm exam.
Homework Assignment
Chapter Two Questions for Discussion: 3, 14, 17, and 25
Practice Test
Take and grade the
Lesson Two Practice Test. Review any
questions that you missed on the test and determine the source of your
difficulty.
In lesson three the
fundamental and critical notion of opportunity cost provides the basis for
supply analysis.
Example: The acres of
grass surrounding the Taj Mahal in Agra, India are often cut by young women who
slice off handfuls with short kitchen blades.
Is this a low- or high-cost way to keep a lawn mowed?
Lecture Lesson Three:
Opportunity cost
is the value of the next best alternative foregone. It is the sacrifice one makes to have some good or service. It is a very powerful analytical tool in our
quest to understand human behavior.
Consider a simple question
regarding employment: What must an employer pay an employee? Her opportunity cost! An individual with a high level of human
capital (education, training and experience) will have a higher opportunity
cost than someone with less training and experience. This helps us understand the low wage rate for, say, childcare
workers.
Learning Objectives
The student must
achieve a fundamental understanding of the following:
Reading Assignment:
Read Chapter 3
(Opportunity Cost and the Supply of Goods) in the Heyne text. You will be held
responsible for all material in the
chapter. Remember that you are reading
in preparation for the Lesson Three Practice Test and, eventually, the midterm
exam.
Homework Assignment
Chapter Three Questions for Discussion: 3, 12, 33,
and 34
Practice Test
Take and grade the
Lesson Three Practice Test. Review any
questions that you missed on the test and determine the source of your
difficulty.
Lesson 4 - Supply and
Demand: A Process of Cooperation
The basic concepts of
supply and demand are integrated in lesson four. This chapter emphasizes the use of graphs to represent the market
and market dynamics. The concepts of
equilibrium, shortage, and surplus are introduced. Hint: Take special note of price ceilings and floors.
Example: If the supply of turkeys in a particular
November turned out to be unusually small, do you think a turkey shortage would
result? Why or Why not? (The answer involves the role of prices!)
Lecture Lesson Four
Words are
important! A common understanding of
the meaning or definition of the words that we use helps us to minimize
ambiguity and facilitate communication and understanding. Consider the thoughts of Cicero:
“The
definition of terms must in fact form the basis of every scientific exposition
if the scope of the argument is to be clearly understood.”1
Humpty Dumpty had
some thoughts about words, as well:
“When
I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just
what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.” 2
Given the
importance of words, you will be expected to know and be able to apply a
variety of economic terms and definitions.
If you do not understand a word in the textbook, look up the definition
in a dictionary.
1 On
Moral Duties, Marcus Tullius Cicero
2 Alice in Wonderland
The student must
achieve a fundamental understanding of the following:
Reading Assignment
Read Chapter 4
(Supply and Demand: A Process of Coordination) in the Heyne text. You will be
held responsible for all material in
the chapter. Remember that you are reading in preparation for the Lesson Four
Practice Test and, eventually, the midterm exam.
Homework Assignment
Chapter
Four Questions for Discussion: 3, 6,
14, and 16
Practice Test
Take and grade the
Lesson Four Practice Test. Review any
questions that you missed on the test and determine the source of your
difficulty.
Economic decisions
are made "at the margin," that is, comparing the benefits of a given change
with the cost of that change. It
is important that the student understands and be able to apply these concepts
to real world situations.
Example: What does it cost you to sleep through one
of 30 lectures in a course for which you paid $300 in tuition?
Lecture Week Five
Markets bring suppliers
and demanders together; they facilitate voluntary exchange. Remember from the first chapter that “the
economist’s alleged promarket bias is probably better seen as a preference for
those institutions and ‘rules of the game’ that make exchange a positive-sum
game, a process from which all participants derive benefit.”
Markets and the
resulting prices provide economic information to decision makers: consumers,
businesses, and the government.
Any intervention
in this market process may result in unanticipated results. Keep this in mind as you read chapter five.
The student must
achieve a fundamental understanding of the following:
The student will
apply the theory and tools of supply and demand (prices and markets) to a
variety of economic issues and problems.
Reading Assignment
Read Chapter 5
(Supply and Demand: Issues and Applications) in the Heyne text. You will be
held responsible for all material in
the chapter. Remember that you are reading in preparation for the Lesson Five
Practice Test and, eventually, the midterm exam.
Homework Assignment
Chapter Five Questions for Discussion: 2, 4, 5, and 11
Practice Test
Take and grade the
week three Practice Test. Review any
questions that you missed on the test and determine the source of your
difficulty.
Lesson 6 - Efficiency, Exchange, and Comparative Advantage
This session provides
the basis for exchange and trade. Specialization is predicated on exchange and
specialization allows for more efficient production thereby increasing the
"economic pie" and standard of living for society.
Example: The dean knows that Professor Svelte is the
most capable administrator in his department, far more capable than Professor
Klunk. Can you think of any reasons
(related to efficiency rather than nepotism) for nonetheless appointing Klunk
over Svelte as department chairman?
Lecture Lesson Six
There are many
important concepts in this chapter. I
am particularly fond of the notion that “Trade Creates Wealth” by rearranging the
pattern of goods and services into a more valuable pattern. Trade allows us to specialize in those areas
where we have some sort of advantage.
It is this fundamental truth that helps to explain why some countries
are wealthy and some are not.
Learning Objectives
The student must
achieve a fundamental understanding of the following:
Reading Assignment
Read Chapter 6
(Efficiency, Exchange, and Comparative Advantage) in the Heyne text.
Homework Assignment
Chapter
Six Questions for Discussion: 6, 8,
22, and 23
Practice Test
Take and grade the
Lesson Six Practice Test. Review any questions that you missed on the test and
determine the source of your difficulty.
Let us consider two
truths: (1) There are costs associated
with acquiring information and (2) information is necessary to make
decisions. What information do
middlemen and speculators provide?
Example: Students frequently complain about the low
prices the campus bookstore pays for used texts. Why then do they sell to the bookstore?
Lecture Lesson Seven
“The promotion of
individual freedom should be the prime objective of social arrangements.”
1.
1. Capitalism
and Freedom, Milton
Friedman
Relate Friedman’s
objective of individual freedom to the role of information, middlemen and
speculators in an economy. What is a
social arrangement? Does this objective
tend to conflict with other societal objectives?
Learning Objectives
The student must
achieve a fundamental understanding of the following:
Reading Assignment
Read Chapter 7
(Information, Middlemen, and Speculators) in the Heyne text. Please note that
you are reading in preparation for the Lesson Seven Practice Test and the
midterm exam is rapidly approaching.
You will be held responsible for all
material in the chapter.
Homework Assignment
Chapter Seven Questions for Discussion: 4, 22, 35, and 38
Practice Test
Take and grade the
Lesson Seven Practice Test. Review any questions that you missed on the test
and determine the source of your difficulty.
Lesson Eight - Price Setting and the Question of Monopoly
Lecture Lesson Eight
Unions represent
monopolies created by the government. The
government has bestowed unique powers of coercion to unions. Consider Hayek’s perspective regarding these
creatures of commerce:
“Unions have not achieved their present magnitude and power by merely achieving the right of association. They have become what they are largely in consequence of the grant, by legislation and jurisdiction, of unique privileges which no other associations or individuals enjoy. They are the one institution where government has signally failed in its first task, that of preventing coercion of men by other men- and by coercion I do not mean primarily coercion of employers but the coercion of workers by their fellow workers. It is only because of the coercive powers unions have been allowed to exercise over those willing to work at terms not approved by the union, that the latter has become able to exercise harmful coercion of the employer. All this has become possible because in the field of labour relations it has come to be accepted belief that the ends justify the means, and that, because of the public approval of the aims of union effort, they ought to be exempted from the ordinary rules of law.”
Studies in Philosophy, Politics, and
Economics, F.A. Hayek, p.
281
Learning Objectives
The student must
achieve a fundamental understanding of the following:
Reading Assignment
Read chapter 8
(Price Setting and the Question of Monopoly) in the Heyne textbook. Please note that you are reading in
preparation for the Lesson Eight Practice Test. You will be held responsible for all material in the chapter.
Homework Assignment
Chapter Eight Questions for Discussion: 4, 8, 14, 18, and 19
Practice Test
Take and grade the
Lesson Eight Practice Test. Review any
questions that you missed on the test and determine the source of your
difficulty.
Lesson Nine - Price Searching
The basic rule for
maximizing net revenue (profits) is discussed in session nine. Price searchers are looking for pricing
structures that will enable them to sell all units for which the marginal
revenue exceeds marginal costs. Price
discrimination is also included in this chapter.
Example: Why will
sellers make offers like this one?
"Buy two giant pizzas at regular price and get a third one for only
a dollar."
Lecture
Lesson Nine
It might be useful at this point to consider the
relationship between economics and ethics.
Consider the following quotation from “Significance of Economic
Science,” by Lord Robbins:
“Economics is neutral as between
ends. Economics cannot pronounce on the validity of ultimate judgments of
value.”
Economic theory can help us understand and predict what is
or what will be. It cannot, however,
tell us what ought to be nor what ought not to be.
Learning
Objectives
The student must achieve a fundamental understanding of the
following:
·
Marginal revenue
·
Profit maximizing rule: operating where mc=mr
·
Price discrimination
·
Cost plus markup pricing
Reading
Assignment
Read chapter 9 (Price Searching) in the Heyne
textbook. Please note that you are
reading in preparation for the Lesson Nine Practice text and the midterm exam
that follows this chapter, as well.
Homework
Assignment
Chapter Nine Questions for Discussion: 1, 4, 6, 12, and 32
Practice
Test and Midterm Exam
Take and grade the
Lesson Eight Practice Test. Review any
questions that you missed on the test and determine the source of your
difficulty.
Take the midterm
exam. Remember that an approved proctor must proctor this test. Note: Exam issues are answered by the
Distance Learning Office.
MIDTERM EXAM: LESSONS
1 - 9
A critical
examination of the role of government and the market. The ambivalence of government policies is discussed.
Example: The Seattle
City Council stopped setting taxicab rates in May 1979. Since that time there have been several
efforts to compel the city to resume regulation. Are you surprised to learn that these efforts are being financed
and promoted by the owners of taxicabs?
Do you believe their statement: "We're doing it to keep people from
being ripped off"?
Lecture Week Ten
Always a topical
chapter! A variety of issues and
questions come into play as we explore the role of the government vis-à-vis a
commercial society.
What is the legitimate
role of the government in a commercial society?
Reasonable people
disagree. Consider the classic
liberal’s view of government:
“Liberalism (in the European nineteenth-century meaning of the word…) is concerned mainly with limiting the coercive powers of all government…”
Friedrich A.
Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty
…that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.
Chapter one,
introductory, on liberty, John Stuart
Mill
The student must
achieve a fundamental understanding of the following:
Reading Assignment
Read chapter 10
(Competition and Government Policy) in the Heyne textbook.
Please note that
you are reading in preparation for the Lesson Ten Practice Test and,
eventually, the final exam. You will be
held responsible for all material in
the chapter.
Homework Assignment
Chapter Ten Questions for Discussion: 6, 15, 16, and 20
Practice Test
Take and grade the
Week Ten Practice Test. Review any
questions that you missed on the test and determine the source of your
difficulty.
What is profit? What is the role of profit in a market
economy? How shall we treat
"windfalls"? Session eleven also
examines discounting and present values.
The average price of
farmland in the U.S. tripled during the
1970s. How would you account for this?
Lecture Lesson Eleven:
Capital Theory
provides us with the tools – both mathematical and conceptual - to consider
time in our decision-making. It
typically involves discounting or compounding of lump sum amounts or annuities
(series of amounts).
Many textbooks
make reference to the notion of “normal profit” or “economic rent” as that
return necessary to attract and maintain entrepreneurial participation in some
economic activity. This is a very
helpful view of profit. Some threshold
level of return below which the entrepreneur will not be willing to continue to
involve herself in some activity, at least in the long-run.
Consider the
following quote by Milton Friedman regarding business firms, social
responsibility, and profit:
”There is one and only one social responsibility of business - to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition, without deception or fraud.”
Construct an
argument to refute Milton Friedman’s position.
Construct an
argument in support of Friedman’s view of profit and social responsibility.
Learning Objectives
The student must
achieve a fundamental understanding of the following:
Reading Assignment
Read chapter 11
(Profit) in the Heyne textbook. Please
note that you are reading in preparation for the Lesson Eleven Practice Test
and, eventually, the final exam. You
will be held responsible for all material
in the chapter.
Homework Assignment
Chapter eleven Questions for Discussion: 1, 5, 33, 37, and 39
Practice Test
Take and grade the
Week Eleven Test. Review any questions that you missed on the test and
determine the source of your difficulty.
In Chapter Twelve, Heyne
discusses a variety of factors that create income: human capital, investment,
and inheritance. The role of labor
unions is examined.
Example: "Workers compete against other workers,
and unions are in part attempts to control this competition. The implication is that unions improve the
position of the members they represent by finding ways to restrict competition
from those who are not members of the union."
Lecture Week Twelve
Economic theory
allows us to better understand the world around us. Furthermore, it provides us with insight regarding possible
solutions to a variety of problems:
Consider the
follow quotations regarding the role of economics in our society:
“In my vacations, I visited the poorest quarters of several cities and walked through one street after another, looking at the faces of the poorest people. Next I resolved to make as thorough a study as I could of Political Economy.”
Alfred Marshall (1842 - 1924)
“It
is the rule of law, in the sense of the rule of formal law, the absence of
legal privileges of particular people designated by authority, which safeguards
that equality before the law which is the opposite of arbitrary government.
A
necessary, and only apparently paradoxical, result of this is that formal equality
before the law is in conflict, and in fact incompatible, with any activity of
the government deliberately aiming at material or substantive equality of
different people, and that any policy aiming directly at a substantive ideal of
distributive justice must lead to the destruction of the rule of law. To produce the
same result for different people, it is necessary to treat them differently….it
cannot be denied that the rule of law
produces economic inequality - all that can be claimed for it is that this
inequality is not designed to affect particular people in a particular way…
…it
may even be said that for the rule of law to be effective it is more important
that there should be a rule applied always without exceptions than what this
rule is.... It does not matter whether we all drive on the left- or on the
right-hand side of the road so long as we all do the same. The important thing is that the rule enables
us to predict other people’s behavior correctly, and this requires that it
should apply to all cases - even if in a particular instance we feel it to be
unjust.”
Page
79, the road to serfdom, Friedrich a.
Hayek, the university of Chicago press, 1944
“Women, in particular, may end up in lower-paying fields because they do everything in their power to avoid a chemistry or an economics course with mathematics or statistics prerequisites. I’ve seen too many bright women to into sociology and too many dull men go into business, the only difference between them being that the men managed to scrape through a couple of college math courses.”
Innumeracy, John Allen Paulos, page 78
Relate the above
quotes to the textbook material on the distribution of income.
Consider and
evaluate the statement: poverty is a
function of the choices which individuals make.
Learning Objectives
The student must
achieve a fundamental understanding of the following:
Reading Assignment
Read chapter 12 (The
Distribution of Income) in the Heyne textbook.
Please note that
you are reading in preparation for the Lesson Twelve Practice Test and,
eventually, the final exam. You will be
held responsible for all material in
the chapter.
Chapter Twelve Questions for Discussion: 3, 6, 12, 16, 22, and 37
Practice Test
Take and grade the
Week Twelve Practice Test. Review any questions that you missed on the test and
determine the source of your difficulty.
A variety of
pollution situations are examined including airport noise, oil-fouled beaches
and factory soot. The textbook author
asserts that pollution problems evolve out of disagreements regarding property
rights.
Example: Why do people disturb others by talking
during movies? Do the talkers and those
whom they're disturbing agree about the rights one acquires by purchasing a
movie ticket?
Lecture Lesson Thirteen
Noise pollution is
near the top of my list of societal ills. Boom boxes, whispering at the
theater, fireworks on the 5th of July all represent negative
externalities that make life a little less pleasant. Why? Ill-defined and
unenforced property rights!
Learning Objectives
The student must
achieve a fundamental understanding of the following:
Reading Assignment
Read Chapter 13
(Externalities and Conflicting Rights). You will be held responsible for all material in the two chapters. Remember that you are reading in preparation
for the Lesson Thirteen Practice Test and, eventually, the final exam.
Homework Assignment
Chapter Thirteen Questions for Discussion: 3, 11, 20, and 23
Practice Test
Take and grade
Lesson Nine Practice Test. Review any questions that you missed on the test and
determine the source of your difficulty.
Why do governments
exist? The answer has to do with the
"free-rider" problem.
Example: Should the members of a volunteer fire
department refuse to put out a fire in the home of someone who has refused to
contribute to the firefighting service?
Lecture Lesson Fourteen
What is the proper
function of government? What is the
role of government with respect to business firms? Does the individual have the right to inter into voluntary
contracts without interference? What is
the optimal level of safety?
Consider a very
famous quote of John Stuart Mill
“…that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”
On Liberty, John Stuart Mill
Learning Objectives
The student must
achieve a fundamental understanding of the following:
·
Positive
externalities and government policies
Reading Assignment:
Read Chapters 14
(Markets and Government) and 15 (The Limitations
of Economics) in the Heyne text. You will be held responsible for all material in the chapters. Remember that you are reading in preparation
for the Lesson 14 practice test and the final exam that follows this chapter, as well.
Homework Assignment
Chapter Fourteen Questions for Discussion: 5, 7, 17, 25, and 33
Take and grade
Week Fourteen Practice Test. Review
any questions that you missed on the test and determine the source of your
difficulty.
FINAL EXAM: LESSONS
10 - 15 in the Heyne text and The Economics of Public Issues reader
Jim Hubert earned his
M.A. in the Department of Economics at the University of Washington in
1973. He currently teaches Economics
and Business Statistics at Seattle Central.
He has taught Money and Banking at the University of Puget Sound and
Real Estate Appraising at Seattle University and Seattle Pacific
University. Hubert has nearly 17 years
in banking including eight years as Vice President and Economist for the
Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle.
August 09