Economics 202 Winter 2008
Econ 202: Principles of Microeconomics
Instructor: Patrick J. McCorkle Class Location: COBB 111
Office: BUS 310 Class Time: 12:30 – 1:45 MWF
Office Phone: 257-2857 Email:
Office Hours: MWF 2:00-4:00, TR 10:00 12:00 or by appointment
Textbooks: The Aplia version of Principles of Economics, Current edition, N. Gregory Mankiw, published by Thompson South-Western. (Required)
Course Goals
This course is designed to provide students with a basic familiarity and ability to apply microeconomic principles to personal and business decision making under a variety of conditions. There are no formal prerequisites for the course. If you are a Business Economics major, you must make at least a C to receive credit for this course for your degree. The primary emphasis of the course will be to develop problem solving skills based on the economic way of thinking. When this course is completed, the student should, (1) understand the concepts of demand and supply and be able to use them to analyze market behavior; (2) be familiar with the relationship between technology and the costs of doing business; (3) understand how different market conditions affect business decisions; and (4) be able to think economically about problems.
Course Outline
Part I – Price Determination: Supply, Demand, and Elasticity
Chapter Title
4 The Market Forces of Supply and Demand
5 Elasticity and Its Application
6 Supply, Demand and Government Policies
7 Consumers, Producers and the Efficiency of Markets
8 Application: The Costs of Taxation
9 Application: International Trade
Part II – Production and Cost
Chapter Title
13 The Costs of Production
14 Firms in Competitive Markets
15 Monopoly
16 Oligopoly
17 Monopolistic Competition
Part III – Applications and Extensions
Chapter Title
10 Externalities
11 Public Goods and Common Resources
18 The Markets for the Factors of Production
19 Earnings and Discrimination
Exams and Grading
There will be 2 midterm exams and a selectively comprehensive final exam. The exact date of the midterm exams will be announced during class at least one week in advance. I reserve the right to give quizzes without notice. There will be no makeup quizzes given for any reason.Your grade in the course will be determined as follows:
Quiz Average 10%
Exams 90%
Unless otherwise specified explicitly, the following grading scale will apply: 100-90 = A, 89-80 = B, 79-70 = C, 69-60 = D 59-0 =F.
There will be no makeup exams or quizzes given for any reason. Please read that last sentence again. This policy is not to encourage skipping tests, but rather to prevent inequities caused by makeup tests. Your grade will be based on the average of your best two tests and your best n-1 quizzes. ALL STUDENTS SHOULD ENROLL IN THE LA TECH EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION SYSTEM AND KEEP THEIR CONTACTS CURRENT ON BOSS. IN THE EVENT OF AN EMERGENDY CLOSING OF TECH CAMPUS STUDENTS ARE DIRECTED TO THE OFFCAMPUS MOODLE SITE FOR ALL COURSE COMMUNICATION AND FOR THE CONTINUATION OF COURSE WORK. INFORMATION ON CLASS CONTINUATION WILL BE AVAILABLE WITHIN 3 DAYS OF CLOSURE
You are on your own to keep up with the material as it is covered in class. There is no substitute for regular classroom attendance preceded by a reading of the currently assigned material. This will greatly facilitate the learning process and save you considerable time and trouble in the long run. Please do not wait until you are completely lost or behind to become concerned. If you need help, come and see me!! Attendance will be taken each class period as is required by the Board of Trustees.
Preparing for Exams
You should be aware in advance that exams for this class will require you to demonstrate your analytical skills rather than your ability to recite facts and procedures committed to memory. Therefore, working problems from the workbook should be your first tool of preparation. The quizzes will also be indicative of the material to appear on the exams. Therefore, I urge you to make a good faith effort to work problems on your own from scratch so that you will not be shocked by the requirement to do so at test time. As you study the material in this class, look for recurring patterns and conceptual relationships that emerge. Keep in mind that the material in this class is intimately related to concepts from other required business courses (like marketing, management, and finance). Sometimes the terminology is different and sometimes the emphasis changes, but all the material we cover relates to decision making as does the material in all your other business classes. Learn to reason through problems that present new and unusual challenges – the kind you will find in the business world once you graduate.
Students Registered with DSS
If you have special needs and are registered with DSS, please inform the instructor.
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