Text:

Brown, William S. 1995. Principles of Microeconomics. St. Paul: West Publishing Company.

Objective:

Generally speaking, what you should hope to learn in this class is how to think like an economist. Thinking like an economist will help you see why economic issues are important -- how they affect your job prospects, the value of your savings, and your future. Moreover, you will learn that everything valuable involves a choice and that alternative decisions always have costs and benefits. Last, but not least, you will learn how to think logically and how to use economic reasoning on a daily basis.

To be more specific, we will basically discuss issues related to the production and use of goods and services. Questions addressed include what gets produced, how does production takes place, and who gets the output. We will also spend quite sometime on questions of public policy that involve microeconomic issues.

We will try to cover Parts I - IV and VI from the book. Part I is an introductory section. Part II and III are theoretical sections, and we will spend quite some time on these sections. We then move to Part IV, which deals with policy issues. By way of conclusion, we will gloss over the final part, Part VI. I will follow the book chapter by chapter.

Grading:

You will be graded on a curve based on three sets of exams: Quiz (50%); mid-term (25%), and final (25%). There will be 9 quizzes, of which I will choose the best 7. Tentatively, the quizzes are scheduled as follows:
quiz #1, chapters 1 and 2;
quiz #2, chapters 3 and 4;
quiz #3, chapters 5 and 6;
quiz #4, chapters 7, 8;
quiz #5, chapters 10, and 11;
quiz #6, chapter 12 and 13;
quiz #7, chapters 15 and 16;
quiz #8, chapters 17 and 18; and
quiz #9, chapter 19 and 20.

You will take the mid-term exam on March 6, and it will cover chapters 1-9. The final exam will be on May 1, 2000 at 8:20 p.m. and covers chapters 11-20.

To pass this class, I strongly recommend that you read each chapter in advance before you come to class and ask questions when you have to. Do the entire problem sets in the text, and never miss a class unless you have a good reason to do so. If you have any special problem I should be aware of (as far as the class is concerned), feel free to talk to me.