ECONOMICS 2010
Principles of Microeconomics
Professor: Billy Mertens
Office: ECON 4A
Office phone: 303-492-3021
E-mail: mertens@colorado.edu
Web: http://spot.colorado.edu/~mertens
Office Hours: M11-12, T4-6, W4-6
Course Description:
Principles of Microeconomics (ECON 2010) is a companion course with
Principles of Macroeconomics. Together
the courses introduce you to the "economic way of thinking". The central fact that underlies economics is
the fact of "scarcity". By
this it is meant that our wants exceed the goods freely available from nature
-- hence choices must be made among the many things we want. This leads to the fundamental economic
questions, narrowly defined, which face all societies: What to produce? How to produce? And for whom to produce? But economics really is much broader in scope
than this; it is really the study of wise decision-making in all areas of
life.
The
topics covered in this course can be divided into four main categories: Supply
and Demand, Consumer Choice, Firm Production, and Applications. After a brief introduction to the economic
way of thinking, we will study supply and demand. Supply and demand analysis provides us with a
graphical way of understanding how the price and quantity of a good will change
when factors such as income, population, and input costs change. By studying elasticity, we will develop an understanding
of what determines how much price and quantity change.
After
finishing supply and demand we will discuss the derivation of supply and
demand. Specifically, we will examine
how a demand curve is derived from consumer decisions about how to allocate
their budget between various goods. We
will also examine the underlying issues behind supply by explaining how a firm
decides how much to produce. We will
develop this in the context of several different market settings.
In
the third part of the semester, we will focus on causes of market failure. In addition to the case of imperfect
competition (which will be discussed in the preceding section), we will examine
public goods, externalities, and international trade.
A
more detailed outline of covered material and chapters will be handed out or
posted separately.
Assignments:
You
will be given problem sets that will be instrumental in your preparation for
exams. I will cover all necessary
material to complete these problem sets and prepare for exams in class. I will post some summary notes on the course
website, but these notes and the book are meant to complement what you learn in
class – they are not substitutes for lecture materials!
I
will occasionally take attendance for extra credit.
Exams:
There
will be four exams each worth 18% of you’re your course grade, and a cumulative
final, worth 20%. Tests will consist of
multiple-choice questions and some longer problems. Exams are not cumulative, but the material
does build on itself so it is important to understand all of the concepts as we
go. No makeup or early exams will be
given. If you miss an exam for any reason, then the weight of your final
exam will be increased by the weight of that exam. There are no exceptions to this rule.
Grading:
Exam total 82%
Recitation 8%
Grading Scale:
Your
score Grade
92%
to 100% A
90%
to 91% A-
88%
to 89% B+
82%
to 87% B
80%
to 81% B-
78%
to 79% C+
72%
to 77% C
70%
to 71% C-
68%
to 69% D+
62%
to 67% D
60%
to 61% D-
Below
59.5% F
Additional
Note: You cannot get credit for both
Economics 1000 and Economics 2010/2020.
Tentative Exam Schedule:
Exam Schedule:
Exam
One: September 19th
Exam
Two: October 15th
Exam
Three: November 7th
Exam
Four: December 5th
Final
Exam: Friday, December 12th
(1:30p)
Additional
Notes:
If
you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit to me a
letter from the Disability Services (DS) early in the semester so that your
needs may be addressed. DS determines
accommodations based on documented disabilities (303-492-8671, Willard 322, www.colorado.edu/sacs/disabilityservices).
Accommodations
can be made if there are any conflicts with religious holidays, but you must
notify me in advance.