ECON 2023  Principles of Microeconomics
Fall 2007

Office Hours:  Tuesday and Thursday 10:00-11:30 and by appointment.
        (but I am around most of the time and you are always welcome to drop by my office!)

Contact Information:
                        Office Location:  425 WCOB
                        Phone: 575-6226
                        email: cdeck@walton.uark.edu

Download a copy of the course syllabus

Assignments are handled in Aplia.  (How do I register in Aplia?)
Exam grades are posted through BlackBoard.

Course Schedule (tentative and subject to change)

Day Topic Assigned Chapter Other Material (required as indicated)
T: 8/21 Introduction 1  
R: 8/23 Math Review   A study showing improved performance of principles students due to required math review. 
T: 8/28 Basic Concepts  2 Measures of Economic Freedom:  http://www.freetheworld.com/download.html#efw
Alan Jackson believes we should be on the interior of the PPF! http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/t/thatdbealright.shtml
R: 8/30 Trade 3 Trade can make everyone better off? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40U063Oh83c
T: 9/4 Supply and Demand   In-class experiment for bonus points
R: 9/6 Supply and Demand 4  
T: 9/11 Supply and Demand 4

Markets for Currency: http://money.cnn.com/data/currencies/index.html
Markets for Information: http://www.tradesports.com/
Terror Threat Exchange? http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59818,00.html

 

Price Gouging in Florida after Dennis http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/fl_price_gouging.html
Price Gouging in Mississippi after Katrina http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=1281692
Arkansas Price Gouging Law:  http://www.ag.state.ar.us/consumers_tips_price_gouging.html
In defense of Price Gouging : http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1954352
R: 9/13 Consumer and Producer Surplus 7  
T: 9/18 Government Policies and Taxes 6 & 8  
R: 9/20 Exam 1   Bring a blank Accu-Scan form to the exam.
T: 9/25 International Trade 9 recent articles on trade
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/09/12/brazil.wto.ap/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6778038/site/newsweek/
R: 9/27 Elasticity 5 Download an Elasticity Handout from a previous semester.
T: 10/2 Utility Theory 21  
R: 10/4 Question and Answer Day   This is an opportunity for you to ask questions, but there will be no new material.
T: 10/9 Income Distribution 20 Here is a link to the US Census web site on poverty.  
R: 10/11 Production 13  
T: 10/16 Production 13 Slides from Class
R: 10/18 Exam 2   Bring a blank Accu-Scan form to the exam.
T: 10/23 Perfect Competition 14 Excel Example
R: 10/25 Perfect Competition 14  
T: 10/30 Monopoly 15
Anti-Trust Guidelines: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/foia/divisionmanual/ch2.htm#a1
Here is a link to the Arkansas Public Service Commission which regulates natural monopolies.
R: 11/1 Monopoly 15  
T: 11/6 Oligopoly 16 Here is a link to the FTC website with Guidelines for Horizontal Mergers.
R: 11/8 Oligopoly 16 In-class experiment for bonus points 
Here is a nice website dealing with game theory.
T: 11/13 Labor Markets 18 Ownership Structure slides
R: 11/15 Wage Discrimination 19  
T: 11/20 Review Day (Independent Study)   You have an assignment to review the material thus far in the course and list five problems
that you believe most people in the class have had difficulty understanding. 
R: 11/22 Thanksgiving   Check out who the market thinks will win rivalry games. 
T: 11/27 Market Failures 10 & 11 In-class experiment for bonus points
R: 11/29 Exam 3   Bring a blank Accu-Scan form to the exam.
T: 12/4 Summary    
T: 12/11 Final Exam at 12:30   Bring a blank Accu-Scan form to the exam.

 

Helpful links for studying Economics:

Announcements:

This website may not have current information and is not binding.  It is the student's responsibility to keep up with the class schedule, current assignments and announcements as they are made in class.