devry ECON-312 Principles of Economics all week discussions

week 1 discussion

Opportunity Cost (graded)

Give an example of how the Principle of Opportunity Cost applies to your life. Think of a recent decision you made. It could be a decision as simple as whether to eat out or cook your own dinner, or it could be a decision to quit your job and go back to school. What alternatives did you consider? How did you arrive at your final decision? Did you implicitly weigh marginal cost and marginal benefit? How does the concept of opportunity cost apply to production possibilities curve (PPC) analysis? How can we use PPC analysis to examine what we do?

Economic Systems (graded)

Think of a business firm you recently visited (such as Walmart, Home Depot, Red Lobster, Barnes & Noble, McDonald’s, etc.). What motivated the producers of all the individual products in the store to make them and offer them for sale? How did the producers decide on the best combinations of resources to use? Who made those resources available, and why? How does the market determine who will get the goods and services? Who decides whether these particular products should continue to be produced and offered for sale? How do these decisions differ between capitalist and socialist systems?

week 2 discussion Demand, Supply, and Market Equilibrium

Think about a product that you have purchased recently (e.g. soda, diapers, takeout meals, milk, shoes, manicure/pedicure, video game, etc.). Explain how the law of demand affected your purchase. Give specific examples of how the determinants of demand and supply affect this product (T-I-P-E-N and P-R-E-S-T). What happens to the demand curve and the supply curve when any of these determinants change? Give examples of scenarios that would cause a change in demand versus a movement along the same demand curve and supply curve for this product. Discuss the new equilibrium price and quantity that result from these changes. Can you demonstrate some of these changes graphically?

Price Elasticity of Demand

Think of another good that you have purchased recently (or you could continue with the good you selected in TDA I). Be specific (e.g. is it breakfast cereal in general or Cheerios cereal specifically). If the price of this item increases, how would this affect the quantity of the good that you consume? Is the Demand for this good Price elastic or Price inelastic? Justify your classification by talking about the determinants of elasticity as they apply to this product. Say price is on the rise for this product and you are the manager of a store, would you be thrilled to be selling this product? Under what circumstances would you want to own a business that sells this product? In other words, how does an increase in price for this good affect your Total Revenue? Using specific examples, relate the concepts of Cross Elasticity and Income Elasticity to this product.

week 3 discussions

A Firm’s Shut Down Decision (graded)

Say you are the manager of a perfectly competitive firm selling a product. Your business is making a loss because total revenue is less than total costs. What would you do--shut down or continue to operate? Use hypothetical numbers to explain. Information you need to provide include--state the product you are selling, the price of the product, the quantity of the product you produce, fixed costs, total cost, figure out total revenue, total and average variable costs. Then go ahead and make your decision. Explain carefully why it makes better sense to shut down rather than continue to operate or to continue to operate rather than shut down, as the case may be. How do fixed costs play a role in your analysis? What is the difference between shutting down and going out of business?

Market Structure Classification (graded)

Think about a firm that you have done business with recently. What industry does this firm belong to? For example, McDonald's is a firm in the fast food industry. What market structure would this industry fall under? What are the names of other firms in this industry? Is it monopolistic competition, oligopoly, monopoly, or perfect competition? Justify your classification of the firm. Use the characteristics/features of the different market structure to determine which market structure to classify your chosen firm.

week 4 disussion

GDP (graded)

Go to the Bureau of Economic Analysis website, www.bea.gov, and access the BEA interactively by selecting "National Accounts" and then "National Income and Product Account Tables." Select "Frequently Requested NIPA Tables," and find Table 1.1.1 on GDP. What is the current GDP growth rate for the U.S.? Examine the trend over the past few years. What trends interest you? What stage of the Business Cycle would the U.S. economy be in currently given the trends? Why might GDP not be considered an accurate measure of economic well-being of a country? Identify at least three limitations of GDP as a measure of economic well-being.

Unemployment and Inflation (graded)

Go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.toc.htm, and click on "Employment Situation Summary" to get the most up-to-date summary of unemployment in the U.S. or the "Employment Situation Summary Table A. Household data, seasonally adjusted." What interests or surprises you about the summary table? How does that rate compare with the rate in the previous month or quarter? Discuss the differences in unemployment rates by gender, age, education, etc.

week 5 discussion

Aggregate Demand and Aggregate Supply (graded)

Go to the BEA website www.bea.gov. On the left tab under Publications, go to the Interactive Data Tables. Select National Income and Product Accounts. From Table 1.1.6 and 1.1.7 examine all four components of GDP (C, I, G, and Xn). Which of these four components of AD declined the most during the 2007 and 2009 recession? Do you think an increase in government's spending (G) can boost the Aggregate Demand (AD) in a recession? Analyze why the economy may operate below full-employment GDP in the short run. How can the multiplier have a negative effect? What is the relationship between the multiplier and the marginal propensities? Explain.

Fiscal Policy (graded)

Give an example of an event or incident that has taken place in the U.S. economy which has a major economic impact--be specific, e.g., 9/11 attack, natural disaster, rise or fall in oil prices due to OPEC policies, consumer optimism or pessimism about an expected economic expansion or downturn, increase in government spending on healthcare, tightening of the legal and institutional environment, and so forth. What effect would this event have on AD or AS, other things being constant? What would be the resulting effect on equilibrium price level? Explain. What will be the effect of the different tools of fiscal policy to stabilize the economy? Give an example of a built-in stabilizer and explain how it would work to reduce this rise or fall in the level of AD.

 week 6 discussion

Money and Banking (graded)

What factors led to the mortgage default crisis? How did mortgage defaults affect banks involved in mortgage lending and mortgage investing? Securitization? TARP? What do these mean? How did mortgage-backed securities spread losses during the mortgage default crisis? How does TARP illustrate the problem of moral hazard? What did the Federal Reserve do during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009? How did the recent financial crisis affect the financial services industry? What are some of the major provisions of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act?

Monetary Policy and the Federal Reserve (graded)

What is the Federal Reserve (Fed) all about? Which Federal Reserve District Bank is closest to you? Who is the current Chairman of the Fed? Should the Fed remain independent from political authority or should the President and Congress have a say in their operations? Why? Why not? What is FOMC? What is the current Federal Funds Rate? How does the Fed implement monetary policy to manage the economy? At the last meeting of the FOMC, what was done to the federal funds rate--increased, decreased, or no change from previous meeting? Given the current state of the U.S. economy, should the Fed be using expansionary monetary policy or contractionary monetary policy? Why? Why Not?

week 7 discussion

Free Trade (graded)

Are you for or against free trade? Are you for or against NAFTA? What is the economic basis for trade? Explain the underlying facts that support free trade and give an example of a good that you purchased recently that is based on resource differences. What are some examples of goods that the U.S. has comparative advantage in producing? Take a look at the tag of the shirt/dress/pants you are wearing today. Where was it made? Anyone wearing “Made in America” items of clothing today? We sometimes hear people say “Buy American." Why don't we? What is the basis of international trade? What are the benefits and the costs? Under what conditions would you advocate for trade restrictions?

Foreign Exchange (graded)

What is happening to the value of the U.S. dollar these days? What causes the value of the U.S. dollar to rise or fall? Who demands U.S. dollar? Who supplies U.S. dollar? When we purchase German products, does our demand for euro go up or down? What are freely floating exchange rates all about, and how do they work? How can the falling U.S. dollar impact your travel expenses? Why would a cheap dollar relative to other nations' currencies be good or bad for U.S. trade?