That's  me ;-)

Economics & Statistics

 Summer term 2015 - 15 June 2015
ECONOMICS I -- Introduction to Economics, Microeconomics -- BIM 2nd semester Summer Term 2015

Basic Material:

Literature: The course is based on the textbook of Sloman: Economics. (8th edition, February 2012 - Links to Pearson-bookshop and catalogue).
To access the material on the book webpage (of 7th ed.) go to: http://media.pearsoncmg.com/intl/ema/ema_uk_he_sloman_econ_7e/pages/textbook_resources_index.htm to access most of the material available for the textbook).     

+ you are invited to consult other (literature) sources - for your presentation (at least three additional sources) as well as for the general work in class, preparation, homework ... (the best might be to take some time in the library starting at the very shelf where our book is located and look around - books about general Economics as well as specific books about Microeconomics can both be helpful. Some first examples:
-
Mankiw "Principles of Economics"
-
Case Fair OsterPrinciples of Macroeconomics” 10th ed.
-
David Begg and Damian Ward: "Economics for Business".

In this module, we use the AULIS, the E-Learning-Platform of the Hochschule Bremen. The group is Repository (=Magazin) » Faculty 1: Business Sciences (School of Int. Business - SIB) » Business Studies / Int. Management (BIM BA) » BIM 2 - Microeconomics - summer term 2015. We are going to use this group for our internal communication and the uploads of the students. -> please kindly upload a picture to your AULIS profile, thank you.

Assessment:
----> General information about the Assessment <- klick on this link

CASE STUDY:
One part of the assessment is a team presentation of a CASE STUDY
about one chapter of the book. You can either select an own case study for your topic (chapter) or use one of the case studies provided by the autors (Sloman, which you find on the editors webpage for each chapter). Here you can access a pdf-file containing all Sloman case studies). It is expected, that you use and present (and quote of course) additional material from (at least 3-5) other academic sources ("literature" = books, articles from academic journals, papers, ...) and examples. To find sources, the University Library provides helpful tool. For example please check: Econmics & Business Studies, Selected Resources - Faculty 1: International Business, Data Bases (for example EconLit), OECD iLibrary); RefWorks, ...

Presentations should be delivered by groups of 3 - 4 students and take between 20 and 30 minutes. The groups are formed by registering in AULIS ! It is expected that you provide a handout. No additional paper has to be delivered. See here for the Marking Criteria for Presentations and an example result for our discussion in class "What makes a good presentation". If you did not enrol for a presentation up to now please do so as soon as possible - using the AULIS forum mentioned above. It is required that you organize your sources in RefWorks and "share" the folder with me (link via email) or the class (link in ppt/handout).
Please recall that the material for the presentation (handout and ppt) has to be delivered on the day before the presentation, so everyone has the possibility to download and print the material on time. If a team fails to deliver the material in time this will lead to a reduction in the mark (= upload to AULIS).
            
In case you want to propose an Individual Assessment, you have to contact the lecturer with a proposal up to 5th June !

7th. ed.:

Tentative Schedule (There will be no classes in the last two weeks => in weeks 3-7 the regular class will take place during the ME slot, see dates indicated below.
Also the presentation dates may be subject to changes!

No week date (week starts ...) present. Unit - topics (Preliminary Schedule) Material
1 1 18 March 2015  

Introduction: Basic problems - Objectives (of Economics / economic policy)

Teamwork about Mankiws "Ten Principles of Economics" and a short excerpt from B. Obama "The Audacity of Hope" (p. 176-184) -> (p. 178-185 for the teamwork)

-> Homework for next MONday (see table below)

Organisational issues: schedule, assessments, online-learning

Welcome.ppt
"Basic Concepts"
Economics @ Wikipedia
!

2 1 19 March 2015  

Introduction: Basic problems; economic systems

Introduction: economic systems
Objectives of economic policy and political systems.

Hierarchy of goals in market economies
- "Wall Street" @ Wikipedia

- See also the
quotations of T. Friedman

Please use the online resources, tests and case studies on the Sloman webpage (see above)

3 2 23 March 2015  

PART A: INTRODUCTION
1: Introducing economics
      Economic systems
      Objectives of economic policy and political systems.
 


Please check whether the registrations to the presentations are correct - and let me know any changes as well as further registration.
Please accept other (international) students into your teams !
Teams for presentations
+ presentation methods & strategies

("What makes a good presentation?"; also check the Marking Criteria)

 - Marking Criteria for Presentations
- "What makes a good presentation"

4 2 25 March 2015

(no pres. 1)

PART B: FOUNDATIONS OF MICROECONOMICS 
2: Supply and demand

(just a reminder: there are many textbook-resources available online)

Don't forget to uploaded your expectations in time!

  - EASTER BREAK March 30 - April 10    
5 3 13 April 2015  

2: Supply and demand

External links:
ERS Glossary,  Price Elasticity of Demand, Commodity and Food Elasticities from USDA (e.g. Cross Price Elasticities of Demand), Excel-File with empirically measured Elasticities (xls 13 MB, zip 1,3 MB) from Defra

6 3 15 April 2015 Please bring a laptop or tablet so that at least two of you have access to a computer!

Presentation of the possibilities of the University Library: Econmics & Business Studies, Selected Resources - Faculty 1: International Business, Data Bases and RefWorks      by Ms. Ilka Gaulke / Peter Schmidt

RefWorks: -> http://www.refworks.com (Gruppencode: RWUBremen)
RefWorks –Youtube-Channel | http://www.youtube.com/user/ProQuestRefWorks

- RefWorks information on the SuUB homepage
- RefWorks - short guide
- Modifying an Output Style (and Sharing)

- EconLit
- OECD iLibrary: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/
- Web of Science: http://isiknowledge.com/wos

Additional tools
Write’N’Cite (short guide) - http://youtu.be/qObr6QoBh2c
OneLine/Cite View (alternative to Write’n’Cite) - https://www.library.ohiou.edu/find/refworks/oneline-citeview.html
RefGrab-It (web pages) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25yPHGyx3T4

Example from another class: Corrected Version of a Reference List

7 3 16 April 2015 - no class due to the open day (Studieninfotag) -

Joint Economic Forecast Spring 2015     
(Apr 16, 2015)

A Strong Upswing Thanks to Cheap Oil and a Weak Euro

Press release

  
8 4 20 April 2015 Pres. 2 2: Supply and demand
3: Markets in Action (6th ed: Government intervention in the market)
 
9 4 22 April 2015   3: Markets in Action (6th ed: Government intervention in the market)
-> Elasticity
 
10 4 23 April 2015 - no class - - no class due to an external seminar -  
11 5 27 April 2015  Pres. 3 PART C: MICROECONOMICS
4: Background to demand

12 5 29 April 2015  Pres. 4 4: Background to demand
 
13 5 30 April 2015   Review / Repetition and questions - chapters 1-4 (and Mankiw) The production process 
Functions of Competition
14 6 4 May 2015  

5: Background to supply -> Profit Maximisation

 
15 6 6 May 2015  Pres. 5   5: Background to supply

 

      excursus Thinking about "rational" decision making ... in Bremen:

"The best result will come if everyone does what is best for himself ... and the group"

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind!
But who cares ...

16 6 7 May 2015   6: Profit maximising under perfect competition and monopoly

 

17 7 11 May 2015  

6: Profit maximising under perfect competition and monopoly

 
18 7 13 May 2015 Pres. 6

6: Profit maximising under perfect competition and monopoly

 Movie "A beautiful Mind" about John F. Nash
"The best result will come if everyone does what is best for himself ... and the group"

- "Split or Steal" and "From Stealing to Trust"

19 7 14 May 2015   (no class, national holiday)  
20 8 18 May 2015 Pres. 7

7: Profit maximising under imperfect competition

 
21 8 20 May 2015 Pres. 8

7: Profit maximising under imperfect competition -> Game Theory
8: Alternative theories of the firm

- "Split or Steal" and "From Stealing to Trust"
22 8 21 May 2015   9: The theory of distribution of income
10: Inequality, poverty and policies to redistribute incomes
(Contents_of7th_edition.doc - 2014) 
    (Mo 25)   (no class, Whitsun)  
23 9 27 May 2015
Pres. 9

10: Inequality, poverty and policies to redistribute incomes  

 In memoriam of John F. Nash
- 'Beautiful Mind' mathematician John Nash killed in crash
- Famed 'A Beautiful Mind' mathematician John Nash, wife, killed in N.J. Turnpike crash
24 9 28 May 2015  

Warm-up questions ;-)
   + review ++ and YOUR question

-> Socrative, waiting for the teacher

11: Markets, efficiency and the public interest

(Istanbul excursion)
25 10 Mo 1 June 2015  

11: Markets, efficiency and the public interest

(Istanbul excursion)
26 10 We 3 June 2015 Pres. 10
12: Environmental Policy  Preview Economics II
Please register for the presentations
27 11 Mo 8 June 2015 Pres. 11

YOUR questions

12: Environmental Policy

 
28 11 We, 10 June 2015  

YOUR questions
                                    
Final Test (30 minutes)

Evaluation

title page of the test 2014: please select 45 out of 55 points

 (Contents_of7th_edition.doc)

-> EconomicsExamExamples_Micro.doc

29 12 Mo 15 June 2015 Pres. 12

13: Governmental Policy towards Business

please kindly participate in a survey:
-> http://schmidt-bremen.de/schummeln

please kindly participate in a survey:
-> http://schmidt-bremen.de/schummeln

30 12 We 17 June 2015 Pres. 13

13: Governmental Policy towards Business

Feedback Discussion

Please remember: last BLOG is due 4. July ! 
This should be a reflection of the class

 

The "Module Exercise" takes place every week.We formed 6 teams and every team / group is assigned tasks for the next session and is expected to present the results.
The module exercise is part of your individual workload, the lecturer won't deliver new information there; he will only moderate the sessions. The tasks of the module exercise normally refer to the topics discussed in the last week(s). The numbers in the table below normally refer to the chapter in the textbook (Sloman: "End of chapter questions" = EoC).

The exercises discussed in the module exercise show the topics of the test. If the students deliver results or approaches to the solution, we'll discuss the correct solution in class. If no approaches are presented, the task will not be discussed in class but nevertheless stay relevant for the test.
Teams:

Date:

 


All students /
photos

Alpha  
Beta  
Gamma  
Delta  
Epsilon  
Zeta

names of students / pictures

           
18 March

Mankiws "Principles" & Obama text - presentation in class:
-> What's it about?

1-2
3-4
5-6
7-8
9-10
Obama
(Mo!) 23 March

Mankiw: "Problems and Applications"

Sloman p 29 (End of chapter 1 questions) 5 and 6
13-15
10-12
7-9
4-6
1-3
15 April
Mankiw: "Problems and Applications"
No. 17 ONE example ! + No. 17 ONE example ! + No. 17 ONE example ! + No. 17 ONE example ! + No. 17 ONE example ! + No. 17 ONE example !
22 April

EoC Chapter 2
(=End Of Chapter questions)

we might do tasks from:
VWL1-MicroExamWS11-12.doc (test of earlier semester)
- Micro Exam (WS 06/07)

1 (recommended to ALL students)
2
4
3 and 5
6- and 8
7 (recommended to ALL students)
29 April

EoC Chapter 3

+ task 4 from:
VWL1-MicroExamWS11-12.doc

1; 2-a
3; 2-b
3; 2-c
4; 2-d
5; 2-e
6; 2-f
06 May

EoC Chapter 4

8
7
6
2, 4 - use (own) illustrations for your answer
1
Describe the income and the substitution effect using figures like 4-16 to 4-18
13 May no homework, we'll do exercises in class -> VWL1-MicroExamWS11-12.doc (test of last semester)
Additionally we might discuss some tasks from the
Microeconomics WS 05/07 EFA 3 (English) (90 min)
all teams should please look at the whole exam - we'll roll the dice which team presents which task ;-) all teams should please look at the whole exam - we'll roll the dice which team presents which task ;-) all teams should please look at the whole exam - we'll roll the dice which team presents which task ;-) all teams should please look at the whole exam - we'll roll the dice which team presents which task ;-) all teams should please look at the whole exam - we'll roll the dice which team presents which task ;-) all teams should please look at the whole exam - we'll roll the dice which team presents which task ;-)
20 May

EoC Chapter 5
ALL students: questions 1 & 2

3
4
5
6
7
8
27 May EoC Chapter 6
ALL students: question 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
03 June Your questions and old exam tasks            
10 June
Your questions and old exam tasks
           
17 June
YOUR questions
           

 

You find some older exam papers here, i.e.:
- Macroeconomics SoSe 06 EFA 4 (English) (60 ! min)

- Microeconomics WS 05/06 EFA 3 (English) (90 min) und the corresponding resit exam
- ISGM combined module "Micro- and Macroeconomics"(parts of 45 Minutes each)
   - exam of 27.01.05: Microeconomics, Macroeconomics
   - resit exam of 08.04.05: Microeconomics, Macroeconomics
please remember that these were all courses based on different books, partly of different intensity, so they are not directly comparable.

 

Top

Links:

 Quotations form the book of Thomas Friedman: "The World is flat":
- For some, particularly among the older generations, this was an unwelcome transformation. Communism was a great system for making everyone equally poor. In fact, there was no better system in the world for that than Communism. Capitalism made people unequally rich, and for some who were used to the plodding, limited, but secure Socialist lifestyle--where a job, a house, an education, and a pension were all guaranteed, even if they were meager--the fall of the Berlin wall was deeply unsettling. (p. 51/52)
- ... to some degree Mikhail Gorbachev's hapless efforts to reform something that was unreformable brought communism to an end. But if I had to point to one factor as first among equals, it was the information revolution that began in the early- to mid-1980s. Totalitarian systems depend on a monopoly of information and force, and too much information started to slip through the Iron Curtain, thanks to the spread of fax machines, telephones, and other modern tools of communication. (p 54)

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Hochschule Bremen
Fakultät Wirtschaftswissenschaften
VWL und Statistik