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: 4pm-5pm (after class) each Friday and Saturday on classes are held or 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 (3e), 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: I will also provide purely optional reading suggestions on MyUni well before each class. In addition, to understand the wide range of interesting issues that microeconomics can beapplied 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 automatically recorded (whenever possible) and made available in the Echo 360 folder on MyUni. Please note that there may be occasions when the recording fails for technical reasons.

Our course will be conducted over 12 weekly sessions. All sessions will be held on Tuesday evenings from 5.00pm to 8.00pm, with a short break halfway through. We will generally cover one topic on each Tuesday evening. As it is difficult to predict exactly how long it will take to cover each topic and I don’t want to limit our in-class discussions, we may not finish our coverage of a topic in the designated session; if so, we will finish it in our next session.

Given the breadth of topics covered, much of our in-class time will necessarily be spent in “interactive lecture” mode, with the emphasis on interactive. I like to make our in-class time as interactive as possible, so please feel free to ask questions and/or offer your perspectives and relevant examples from your own experience at any time. We may also break up our sessions with short problem-solving exercises, reviews of assignment questions/answers and discussion of current economic issues to help us understand and apply what we learn. I may ask individual students to present their answers to particular assignment questions in-class. I’ll bring at least
one current issue to each session for us to discuss. Please also feel free to suggest current issues that you would like us to discuss.

While you don’t necessarily have to read the lecture notes prior to the relevant session, it would be useful to complete the required reading beforehand.

To help ensure that our classes are as effective as possible, please feel free to provide me with feedback at any time. Your 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.

Important note: This course assumes no previous training in economics. Please be aware that when people first study economics, they will almost-certainly feel frustrated for some time. I certainly did! We do need to learn a number of economic concepts/tools before we are able to tackle the more interesting stuff. It will almost-certainly take some time before you feel that what we are learning starts to “clicks together”. Therefore, if you feel somewhat frustrated in our first few sessions, that is completely normal. You will also feel somewhat frustrated even at the end of our course because, given the time available and the territory we need to cover, we will not be able to go into as much depth as you would like on various issues. It is more important that you gain some knowledge and the ability to use a range of economic concepts/tools rather than an in-depth knowledge of only a few. However, to partially ease your frustration, I will provide optional (non-assessable) readings and/or optional attachments to our lecture notes so that you can explore particular topics in more depth if you wish to.

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, 2 & 3 (but not the appendices)	January 31
2	Demand & Supply Part 2	Hubbard Ch. 4	February 7
3	Firms, Revenues, Costs & Supply	Hubbard Ch. 6	February 14
4	Market Structures Part 1: Perfect Competition & Monopoly	Hubbard Ch. 7 & 8	February 21
5	Market Structures Part 2: Monopolistic Competition and Oligopoly	Hubbard Ch. 9	February 28
6	Economic Efficiency, Market Failure & the Role of Government	Hubbard, Ch. 5 & 11	March 7
	Mid-Trimester Test (in-class)	Nil	March 14
7	Introduction to the Macroeconomy: Part 1	Hubbard Ch.12 & 13	March 14
8	Introduction to the Macroeconomy: Part 2 Aggregate Demand & Aggregate Supply	Hubbard Ch. 14 (but not the appendix)	March 21
9	Monetary Policy	Hubbard Ch. 15 & 16	March 28
10	Fiscal Policy	Hubbard Ch. 17	April 4
11	International Macroeconomics: Part 1	Hubbard Ch. 18	April 11
12	International Macroeconomics: Part 2	Hubbard Ch. 19	April 18
13	Final Exam (in-class)	Nil	April 27

Type	Weight
Assignments	25%
Mid-trimester test	25%
Final Exam	50%

Assignments: 25%

There will be 10 short assignments; each is worth 2.5% of your total grade. These
assignments are due prior to the start of each of our Tuesday sessions except
those on January 31 (our first class) and March 14 (when we’ll have our mid-trimester
test). To be eligible to receive a grade, you must submit your written answers
to the assignment questions prior to the start of the relevant session. Late
submissions will not be accepted. Instructions on how to submit your assignment
answers are provided on MyUni.

I will grade all assignments submitted and post
your grades on MyUni as soon as possible. I will also post suggested answers as
soon as I have completed grading all assignments submitted. Your assignments
and my feedback will be returned to you by no later than our next session after
you submit it (and probably earlier if you submit your assignment on Turnitin).
We will discuss some of each assignment’s questions and answers in our next
session (the week after the assignment is submitted).

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

Mid-trimester test: 25%

A mid-trimester test will be held on March 14. It will comprise 15 minutes
reading time and 60 minutes writing time. The test questions will be similar in
style to our assignment questions and to those in the mid-trimester test I set
for this course in Trimester 3 2016 (which I will post on our MyUni site). The
test questions will be of similar style to. The test will be open-book and you
will have significant choice in the questions that you answer. Wireless
internet access will not be permitted during the test.

I will grade the mid-trimester test and post the grades
on MyUni as soon as possible. I will provide further information on the
mid-trimester test closer to the time.

Final exam: 50%

The final exam will comprise 30 minutes reading time and 2 hours writing time.
This exam may assess all topics covered in the course. However, as the
mid-trimester test will focus on Topics 1-6, the final exam will focus more on
Topics 7-12. The exam questions will be similar in style to those in final exams
that I have set in this course in the past (example of which I will post on our
MyUni site). The exam will be open-book and you will have significant choice in
the questions that you answer. Wireless internet access will not be permitted
during the test.

I will provide further information on the final
exam closer to the time.

Please refer to MyUni for further instructions
regarding how to submit assignments. 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.