Econ 2 Course Syllabus PDF

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Summer Course...

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Economics 2: Principles of Economics Summer 2020 Instructor: Email: Office Hours:

Chris Surro [email protected] TBD

Time: Place:

Tuesday, Thursday 1:00-3:05 Online

Course Webpage: https://moodle2.sscnet.ucla.edu/course/view/201A-ECON2-1 Goal of the class: A basic knowledge of macroeconomics is absolutely essential to understanding many of the most important current events in the world today. This class hopes to provide a foundation on the most important topics in the field of macroeconomics. Topics include measurement of the aggregate economy, production and growth, the financial system, unemployment, monetary and fiscal policy, and international trade. Additionally, we will work on how to effectively present economic data in a data report project and on writing about current economic events. Course Materials: Principles of Economics 8th Edition - N. Gregory Mankiw All lectures will be posted as a video recording on CCLE at the scheduled class time. Occasionally, additional readings may be posted on the class website. Unless otherwise specified, these are optional and not required for exams (although may be helpful) Grading Policy: Midterm: 175 points Final: 350 points Data Report: 175 points Discussion Board: 100 points Quizzes: Extra Points (See Below) Important Dates: Midterm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/9 Data Report Due . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/23 Final . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/30

Econ 2

Summer 2020

Graded Material: Midterm: The midterm will cover the material from the first two weeks of class, corresponding to chapters 23-28 in the textbook. It will consist of 35 multiple choice questions and you will have 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete it. Final: The final will be cumulative and cover all material in lecture, chapters 23-35 in the textbook. It will consist of 70 multiple choice questions and you will have 2 hours and 30 minutes to complete it. Data Report: You will be asked to collect some macroeconomic data from a country of your choice and put it together in a nice looking report. The goal of this data report will be to both familiarize yourself with some basic macroeconomic data as well as practice data description and visualization. More information will be provided in the formal assignment description and in the lecture on Thursday, 6/25. The data report will be due on July 23. Discussion Board: Each of you will be assigned one week where you will be required to find one article from an online news source (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.) related to macroeconomics. You need to post on the discussion board a link to this article as well as a 1 paragraph summary and 1 paragraph describing your own thoughts (2 paragraphs total). This should be at least 250 words but you are welcome to write more. Additionally, throughout the course, you must comment on at least 2 other people’s posts. Comments should be a few sentences (around 100 words - but can be longer!) and should give your own opinion on the article and the original poster’s thoughts. The goals of this assignment are to keep you up to date on current events in macroeconomics, to engage in conversation with your classmates, and to practice writing about economic topics. Quizzes: Following each lecture there will be a short quiz posted online for you to complete. The goal of these quizzes is both for you to practice the material and for me to see how well you understood the topics in lecture. Each quiz taken on time will add 10 points to the numerator and denominator of your final point total (up to 100). For example, if you earned 640/800 points on the required class material (80%) and completed all the quizzes, your final score would be 740/900 (82.2%). Note that this scoring method means that if you are already doing very well in the class, the extra points will not add much to your grade. To prevent totally blind guessing, you must get at least 50% on the quiz for it to count for credit. Exam Policies: Exams are open book, open note, open internet, but questions are designed to test understanding. If you go into the exam expecting to look up all of the answers you will probably run out of time. You may not discuss your exam with your classmates while you are taking it. Exams will be offered at multiple times to accommodate students in different time zones. Academic Integrity: Please refer to the University of California’s policies on academic integrity http://www.deanofstudents.ucla.edu/Academic-Integrity. Any cheating, plagiarism, or other violations of academic integrity will be reported to the Office of the Dean of Students.

Econ 2

Summer 2020

Tentative Course Outline: Week

Dates

Topic

Book Chapters

1

6/23

Introduction and Measuring and Nation’s Income

23

6/25

Measuring the Cost of Living and Collecting Economic Data

24

6/30

Production and Growth and Unemployment

25, 28

7/2

Saving, Investment, and the Financial System

26, 27

7/7

Midterm Review

7/9

Midterm

7/14

The Monetary System, Money Growth and Inflation

29, 30

7/16

Open Economy Macroeconomics

31, 32

7/21

Aggregate Supply and Aggregate Demand

33, 34

7/23

The Short-Run Tradeoff Between Inflation and Unemployment

35

7/28

Final Review

7/30

Final

2

3

4

5

6...