Introduction to Economic Analysis
Fall 2010
Jeffrey Parker, Reed College
Assignments
Cases of the Day
- September 1: Airline Safety Choices
- September 3: Markets, Scalpers, and Queues: The Economics of Event Tickets
- September 10: Counterintuitive Price Behavior of Seasonal Goods
- September 13: Elasticities of Demand for Higher Education
- September 20: Oil Prices and Consumer Demand
- September 24 and 27: Costs and Competition in Dairy Farming
- October 1: The Washington Sales Tax and Interstate Competition in Retail Trade
- October 8: The New York City Ice Trust
- October 11: The Global Lysine Price-Fixing Conspiracy
- October 25: Immigration and the Domestic Labor Market
- October 29: Tracing the Effects of the Oil Embargo
- November 1: Why Is Health Care So Expensive?
- November 12: The Great Depression
- November 15: Utility and Happiness in Macroeconomics
- November 17: Information Technology and Productivity Growth
- November 19: Appropriability and Incentives for Innovation
- November 22: Mortgage-Backed Securities and the Allocation of Risk
- November 29: Money and Inflation in Argentina
- December 3: Monetary and Fiscal Policies in 2008-10
- December 6: U.S. Disinflation in 1979-82
Homework Assignments
- Problem Set #1, due September 8. Solutions
- Problem Set #2, based on double-oral auction experiment, due September 15. Presentation slides
- Problem Set #3, due September 22. Solutions
- Problem Set #4 (based on Dairy Farms Case), due September 29. Solutions
- Problem Set #5, due October 13. Solutions
- Economic Naturalist Assignment, due October 27.
- Problem Set #6, due November 3. Solutions
- Problem Set #7, due November 24. Solutions
- Optional: Group Research Projects, due December 1, presented December 2. Project reports
- Problem Set #8, due December 8. Solutions