ECON3670 Meeting session1 Memorial University of Newfoundland ECON 3670 Applications of Choice Theory Roberto Martinez-Espineira Lecture 0 - Meeting session

ECON Intro meeting2 Introduction –Outline description: –Readings: Textbook, course pack and additional readings –Assignments –Website – –Office AA 3087 –The course

ECON Intro meeting3 Outline description –Books: –Economics Uncut: A Complete Guide to Life, Death and Misadventure. Edited by Simon W. Bowmaker, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2006

ECON Intro meeting4 Outline description –Books: –You are supposed to come to the class prepared, we will go fast through the models and use the class more for discussions –Exam questions could come from anywhere, … as well as “from nowhere” –Doing the readings is essential! It will hopefully be fun too, and not too taxing

ECON Intro meeting5 Outline description –Additional readings (mainly in the course pack, so you don’t need to buy them) are from, among others: –The Economics of Sports, by Michael Leeds and Peter von Allmen, Addison Wesley, –Freakonomics A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, William Morrow & Company, 2005 –Sex, Drugs & Economics - An Unconventional Intro to Economics. 1st Edition. Diane Coyle. Thomson South- western, –The Economics of Sport and Recreation by Chris Gratton and Peter Taylor. E&FN Spon, New York (2000)

ECON Intro meeting6 Outline description –Additional readings (mainly in the course pack, so you don’t need to buy them) are from, among others: –Friedman, David D. (1997) Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life –Landsburg. S. (1993) The Armchair Economist. –And different Economics journals…

ECON Intro meeting7 Outline description For help with some of the core microeconomic models and concepts used, you should consult: –Perloff, J. (2004) Microeconomics, Third Edition, Addison Wesley Longman, available in the reserve collection in the library, or any other good Intermediate Microeconomics book of your choice.

ECON Intro meeting8 Outline description DatesWeight Two mid-term tests Wed Wk 6 & Wed Wk 11 40% (30% best one) NB: Midterms will not be rescheduled, their weight will be reallocated to the final exam EssayDue on Monday Wk 12 25% NB: Late submissions of essays will be penalized at the rate of 5 marks per day. Final examTBA35%

ECON Intro meeting9 Outline description Website: –I will you with the link –Easy to find from the MUN Economics website –(or Google!)

ECON Intro meeting10 Outline description How to find me: – (only from your MUN account! Please write ECON 3670 somewhere in the subject line) –Office AA 3087 Office hours: TUE 1:30 to 4:30, WED 12:45 to 13:45 … or by appointment

ECON Intro meeting11 The course Several subthemes focus on aspects of the economics of: –professional organized sport and of recreational sports –prostitution, dating, and, marriage –crime, mainly in relation with the regulation of illegal drugs and the consumption of addictive goods –gambling and other addictive behavior associated with the consumption of leisure –the entertainment industry

ECON Intro meeting12 The course We will challenge the conventional wisdom that these behaviors should only be studied by sociologists and psychologists …or worse: advocacy researchers We will try to stick as much as possible to a positive approach to investigating many controversial issues and policies, rather than normative approach

ECON Intro meeting13 The course This course shows students how economics can be used as an aid in understanding almost every choice associate with human behavior Microeconomics and its subspecialities will help us with that

ECON Intro meeting14 The course –We will avoid big technicalities and the most complex models –But you have to be able to extract from a paper the main ideas, to critically consider the main assumptions, and to identify the conclusions. –We will try to relate the materials in the readings to your knowledge of Economics from other courses –We will try to relate the materials in the readings to your upper year Economics courses such as Labour Economics, Microeconomics, Environmental Economics, or Industrial Organization.

ECON Intro meeting15 The course We will often ask ourselves the question: –How would an economist think about this issue? –What have economist done about this problem? –Which tools did they use and how? –Does this analysis relate to other more conventional Economics problems? –Basically: how do we extend the basic models of competitive markets?

ECON Intro meeting16 The course We will exploit the basic tools you acquired in your Introductory Micro course, such as: -Scarcity -Marginal analysis -Opportunity cost -Equilibrium

ECON Intro meeting17 The course –We will also learn how to interpret empirical analyses –How to read with a critical eye reports and summaries of empirical studies –Further. we will anticipate the kinds of issues empirical microeconomists must face when trying to collect data and conduct microeconometric studies