ECON3670 Meeting session 1

Memorial University of Newfoundland

ECON 3670Applications of Choice Theory

Roberto Martinez-EspineiraLecture 0 - Meeting session

ECON 3670- Intro meeting 2

Introduction

– Outline description:– Readings: Textbook, course pack and additional

readings– Assignments– Website– Email ramartinezesp@– Office AA 3087– The course

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Outline description

– Books:– Economics Uncut: A Complete Guide to Life, Death

and Misadventure. Edited by Simon W. Bowmaker, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2006

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Outline description

– Books:– You are supposed to come to the class prepared, we

will go fast through the models and use the class more for discussions

– Exam questions could come from anywhere, … as well as “from nowhere”

– Doing the readings is essential! It will hopefully be fun too, and not too taxing

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Outline description– Additional readings (mainly in the course pack, so you

don’t need to buy them) are from, among others:– The Economics of Sports, by Michael Leeds and Peter von

Allmen, Addison Wesley, 2005.– Freakonomics A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side

of Everything. by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, William Morrow & Company, 2005

– Sex, Drugs & Economics - An Unconventional Intro to Economics. 1st Edition. Diane Coyle. Thomson South-western, 2004.

– The Economics of Sport and Recreation by Chris Gratton and Peter Taylor. E&FN Spon, New York (2000)

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Outline description– Additional readings (mainly in the course pack, so you

don’t need to buy them) are from, among others:– Friedman, David D. (1997) Hidden Order: The Economics of

Everyday Life– Landsburg. S. (1993) The Armchair Economist.

– And different Economics journals…

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Outline descriptionFor help with some of the core microeconomic models and

concepts used, you should consult: – Perloff, J. (2004) Microeconomics, Third Edition, Addison

Wesley Longman, available in the reserve collection in the library, or any other good Intermediate Microeconomics book of your choice.

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Outline description  Dates WeightTwo mid-term tests Wed Wk 6 & Wed Wk 11

  

40% (30% best one)NB: Midterms will not be rescheduled, their weight will be reallocated to the final exam

Essay Due on Monday Wk 12

25% NB: Late submissions of essays will be penalized at the rate of 5 marks per day.

Final exam TBA 35%

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Outline description

Website:– I will email you with the link– Easy to find from the MUN Economics website – (or Google!)

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Outline description

How to find me:– Email rmartinezesp@ (only from your MUN

account! Please write ECON 3670 somewhere in the subject line)

– Office AA 3087Office hours:

TUE 1:30 to 4:30, WED 12:45 to 13:45… or by appointment

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The courseSeveral subthemes focus on aspects of the economics of:– professional organized sport and of recreational sports– prostitution, dating, and, marriage– crime, mainly in relation with the regulation of illegal

drugs and the consumption of addictive goods– gambling and other addictive behavior associated with

the consumption of leisure– the entertainment industry

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The course

• We will challenge the conventional wisdom that these behaviors should only be studied by sociologists and psychologists

• …or worse: advocacy researchers • We will try to stick as much as possible to a

positive approach to investigating many controversial issues and policies, rather than normative approach

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The course

• This course shows students how economics can be used as an aid in understanding almost every choice associate with human behavior

• Microeconomics and its subspecialities will help us with that

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The course

– We will avoid big technicalities and the most complex models

– But you have to be able to extract from a paper the main ideas, to critically consider the main assumptions, and to identify the conclusions.

– We will try to relate the materials in the readings to your knowledge of Economics from other courses

– We will try to relate the materials in the readings to your upper year Economics courses such as Labour Economics, Microeconomics, Environmental Economics, or Industrial Organization.

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The course

We will often ask ourselves the question:– How would an economist think about this issue?– What have economist done about this problem?– Which tools did they use and how?– Does this analysis relate to other more conventional

Economics problems?

– Basically: how do we extend the basic models of competitive markets?

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The course

We will exploit the basic tools you acquired in your Introductory Micro course, such as:

- Scarcity- Marginal analysis- Opportunity cost- Equilibrium

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The course

– We will also learn how to interpret empirical analyses– How to read with a critical eye reports and summaries

of empirical studies– Further. we will anticipate the kinds of issues empirical

microeconomists must face when trying to collect data and conduct microeconometric studies