Economics Access Course Sylvain Barde

The rules of the game Seminars The marking system and the exercises Purpose of the course

The seminars 14 weeks times 1 hour Attendance to the seminars is compulsory Make sure you do the exercises each week Prepare questions on the points or the reading that seem unclear Do not hesitate to ask questions during the seminar The course outline and slides will be made available on the ENTG

The seminars During the first part of each hour we will: Go over the exercises from the previous week Clarify points on which you had trouble Make sure you prepare the exercises, they are part of the learning process ! The exercises to be prepared for each week will be given in the course outline

Module marks The overall mark for the module is based on the seminar work you hand in: 2/3 given by the seminar marks 1/3 given by personal mark (attendance, participation) The average exercise mark (incentives!) : You are free to hand in exercises every week The mark is the average of your best 6 results If you hand in less than 6 exercises, then your average takes in the extra 0’s needed to make up the 6 marks...

Economics Access Course Introduction Why economics contains so much maths

Economics tries to understand the behaviour of agents Resources are limited, therefore agents have to make choices. These depend on the incentives faced by the agent Because agents are different, they can benefit from exchange Producers and consumers therefore meet on markets that ensure an efficient use of these resources

Why economics contains so much maths The aim of economics if to answer the following questions: What to consume ? How much ? What to produce ? (Which good ?) How to produce it ? (Which technology ?) Why are some countries richer than others? Why do some countries have high unemployment ? High inflation?

Why economics contains so much maths In order to answer these questions and understand how agents make their decisions, economics models: The decision making process of the agent The flows of goods and services in the economy We use models because it is impossible to understand directly the depth and complexity of human behaviour This is what we’ll examine next week when we look at how models are used in science

Why economics contains so much maths Example of Sir Arthur Lewis (Nobel prize 1979) on Dani Rodriks’ Blog  we-use-math.html There is an apparent paradox:  « Maths are complicated »  In fact, it’s a simplification !! In other words, we use maths because we’re not intelligent enough to do without !!

Why economics contains so much maths Mathematics allows us: To use a symbolic notation for all the variables in a given problem. To develop notations and rules that define logical relations (logical operations are “codified”) As a result one can carry out a complex series of logical operations without making mistakes, forgetting variables, etc.

Why economics contains so much maths Which types of mathematics do economists use ? Algebra, mainly solving equations  Part 2 Calculus, mainly analysing the properties of functions  Part 3 Statistics  Which we won’t see