Trimester 1 and Trimester 3
Professor Paul Kerin

Some background information on me is available here.
My office is: Room 3.27, Level 3, Nexus 10 Building, 10 Pulteney Street.
Consultation times: 4.00pm-5.00pm after each of our Saturday sessions or by
appointment. Please feel free to arrange appointments with me at times that
suit you.

Email: paul.kerin@adelaide.edu.au 
Mobile phone: 0417 240860.

Trimester 2
Dr Raul Barreto

Some background information on me is available here.
My office is: Room 426, Level 4, Nexus 10 Building, 10 Pulteney Street.
Consultation times: 2pm-3pm every Tuesday or by appointment.

Email: raul.barreto@adelaide.edu.au
Telephone: 83133240.

Economics is often divided into two streams: microeconomics and macroeconomics. Microeconomics focuses on the behaviours and
interactions of economic agents, such as firms, households and individuals. Macroeconomics looks at the economy as a whole, especially the behaviours of aggregate measures (such as gross domestic product, economic growth the unemployment rate, the inflation rate, exchange rates and interest rates) and how they vary with the business cycle and respond to government policies.

Our course provides an overview of both microeconomics and macroeconomics. Throughout the course, we will consider contemporary economic issues – and their relevance to business operational and/or strategic decision-making, as well as economic and/or social policy – through the lens of economics.

By the time you successfully complete this course, you will have developed:

1	An understand of key economic concepts, principles and analytical tools, as well as the “language” and ways of thinking that economists employ;
2	An ability to apply key microeconomic and macroeconomic principles and analytical tools to make better managerial decisions – and communicate your solutions convincingly to both economists and non-economists;
3	An understanding of economic policy issues and their relevance to management;
4	An ability to communicate your views on economic conditions and policy issues and why they are relevant to management;
5	An understanding of the roles that governments and markets can play in improving the welfare of our society; and
6	Leadership, communication interpersonal skills and an ability to work collaboratively with your peers through group work.

Hubbard, R., Garnett, A., Lewis, P., and O’Brien, A. (2016), “Essentials of Economics 3”, Third adaptation edition, Pearson Australia.

Paperback edition ISBN: 9781486022847. Both paperback and eBook editions are available (e.g., from the publisher at http://www.pearson.com.au).

As I tailor readings to each topic, no other textbook is recommended. Tailored readings will be available on MyUni well before the relevant class sessions.

Optional: To understand the wide range of interesting issues that microeconomics can be applied to, you may want to read “Freakonomics” and/or “SuperFreakonomics” (both by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner) and/or visit the Freakonomics blog at: www.freakonomics.com. To understand current macroeconomic conditions, you may wish to visit the Reserve Bank’s website at www.rba.gov.au. To keep up-to-date with management-relevant microeconomic and macroeconomic issues, you may wish to read the Australian Financial Review and/or The Economist.

I will post course materials, assessment tasks and important announcements in MyUni. Please check both our MyUni course website and your university email account regularly. 

https://myuni.adelaide.edu.au/webapps/login/

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/its/webmail/

Lectures will be recorded (whenever possible) and made available on MyUni. Please note that there may be occasions when the recording fails for technical reasons.

Each of our weekly classes will include a lecture. In addition, significant time will be spent in each class on tutorial-like activities (e.g., discussing review questions and answers, doing short quizzes and debating relevant topical issues) to help us understand and apply what we learn in the lecture. I like to make our class time as interactive as possible, so please feel free to ask questions and/or offer your perspectives and relevant examples at any time.

To assist you, I will bring paper copies of all materials to each class, for both that class and the following week’s class. While you don’t necessarily have to read the lecture notes prior to class, please complete all required readings and any assigned tasks (e.g., review questions) before class.

To help ensure that our classes are effective as possible, please feel free to provide me with feedback at any time. Such feedback will be particularly valuable in the early stages of our course, as this will enable me to change my teaching style before it is too late. In addition, I would be grateful if you could complete a SELT form and provide written comments (in addition to numeric scores) at the end of our course, as that will help me improve the course and my teaching for future students.

The University of Adelaide expects full-time students (i.e., those taking four 3-unit course at a time) to devote a total of 48 hours per week to their studies. This translates to 12 hours per week for our 3-unit course. That is, in addition to our 3 hours of class time per week, you should expect to devote 9 hours per week to your studies in this course.

Note: This schedule is subject to change.

Week	Topic	Textbook Reading	Class Date
1	Introduction to Microeconomics; Demand & Supply Part 1	Hubbard Ch. 1 (not the appendix), 2 & 3 (not the appendix)	February 3
2	Demand & Supply Part 2: Elasticities	Hubbard Ch. 4	February 10
3	Firms, Production and Costs	Hubbard Ch. 6	February 17
4	Market Structures Part 1: Perfect Competition & Monopoly	Hubbard Ch. 7 & 8	February 24
5	Market Structures Part 2: Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly	Hubbard Ch. 9	March 2
6	Market Failure & the Role of Government	Hubbard, Ch. 5 & 11	March 9
7	Introduction to Macroeconomics: GDP, Unemployment & Inflation	Hubbard Ch.12 & 13	March 16
8	Aggregate Demand & Aggregate Supply	Hubbard Ch. 14 (not the appendix)	March 23
9	Money & Monetary Policy	Hubbard Ch. 15 & 16	March 30
10	Fiscal Policy	Hubbard Ch. 17	April 6
11	International Macroeconomics: Trade, Capital Flows & Exchange Rates	Hubbard Ch. 18 & 19	April 13
12	Review Session	Nil	April 20
13	Final Exam (in-class)	Nil	April 27

Type	Weight
Tutorial assignments	25%
Group assignment	25%
Final Exam	50%

Tutorial assignments: 25% There will be 11 weekly tutorial assignments. The first tutorial assignment is due prior to the start of class in week 2. To be eligible to receive a grade, you must submit your written answers to the tutorial assignment questions prior to the start of the relevant class. Late submissions will not be accepted. Instructions on how to submit your tutorial assignment answers will be provided on MyUni.

I recommend that you keep a copy of each submitted assignment and bring it along to class to help you participate in our discussion of the answers. I will post answers to tutorial assignment questions after the class in which they are discussed.

As some tutorial assignment questions may focus on issues that emerge in the news during our course, I will post tutorial assignments on MyUni as the course progresses. However, I will ensure that each tutorial assignment is available on MyUni at least 2 weeks prior to the due date.

Your best 8 tutorial assignment grades will be used to calculate your final result for this portion of assessment. Therefore, if you submit all 11 assignments, your lowest 3 grades will not be counted.

Nevertheless, you are expected to complete every tutorial assignment; this will help to ensure that our class discussions are as effective as possible. As the “best 8” rule allows for leeway in the event of illness or compassionate issues, there will generally be no special consideration granted for such issues.

Group assignment: 25% A 1,500 word group assignment will be due prior to the start of class in week 9. Late submissions will not be accepted. Groups may comprise 2, 3 or 4 people. You may form these groups yourselves or with my assistance. I will confirm the groups prior to the start of class in week 3. It is probably not worthwhile for you to do much work on this assignment until after our week 4 class (by then, you will have learned enough to get started). That will give you 5 weeks to complete the assignment. The assignment question and instructions on how to submit your group assignment will be provided on MyUni.

Final exam: 50% The final exam will be a 3-hour exam, plus 10 minutes reading time. This exam may assess all topics covered in the course. Details regarding the final exam will be posted on MyUni. Please note that it will be a closed book exam. Dictionaries of any type will not be allowed in the exam. Calculators will be allowed in the exam, but calculators that can store text, are programmable, or have wireless functions will not be permitted. This means that graphics calculators are not permitted, and some particular scientific calculators may not be permitted.

Please refer to MyUni for further instructions regarding how to submit tutorial assignments and the group assignment. Late submissions will not be accepted. Please retain a copy of all assignments submitted.

Additional Assessment If a student receives a final mark of 45-49 for the course, he/she will automatically be granted an additional assessment. This will most likely be in the form of a new exam (Additional Assessment) and will have the same weight as the original exam. If, after replacing the original exam mark with the new exam mark, it is calculated that the student has passed the course, the student will receive a final grade of 50 Pass for the course (no higher). If the calculation totals less than 50, the student’s grade will be Fail and the higher of the original mark or the mark following the Additional Assessment will be recorded as the final result.