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First class, and Chapter 1

First class, and Chapter 1. Link to syllabus. Course Arrangements. Roll – class list Office Hours Grade: Exams, curve, extra credit S yllabus E-mail list server. M.T.’s homepage for syllabus, old exams, and lecture notes in

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First class, and Chapter 1

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  1. First class, and Chapter 1 Link to syllabus

  2. Course Arrangements Roll – class list Office Hours Grade: Exams, curve, extra credit Syllabus E-mail list server M.T.’s homepage for syllabus, old exams, and lecture notes in .pptx or .docx format. Also on C-Tools and CANVAS. Textbook, study guide, tutors Math pre-requisite. Good to read newspaper Different interests of students, by majors. People who’ve had 202. Freshmen. Bring pencil and calculator to exams – no scantrons. Note: Econ 201 is Macro at UMD. Different at UM-AA .

  3. 1. Moves quickly, hitting main points of text, frequent efforts at relating to current events Characteristics of this course: 2. Will use PowerPoint presentations.Advisable to bring textbook to class; try to skim it beforehand. Bring a tape recorder if you like. TURN OFF CELLULARS!! 3. Anything in the text is fair game on exams. Virtually nothing from outside the text on exams. Not much math, but lots of graphs. 4. After each exam, students will be asked if the exam was fair, and if it repaid studying. Graded exams returned the next class day (hopefully). 5. Some effort to use the web; syllabus, extra credit, and previous exams on my webpage, and listserver for the class. 6. Some parts of text omitted from this course.

  4. Definitions of Economics Study of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services Efficient use of limited resources to achieve maximum satisfaction of human wants. Differences between macro and micro Positive (value free) vs. Normative (reflects values of the speaker) [p 37-8]

  5. Overview of Macro: Overview of Macro: study of factors determining unemployment and inflation Producers—respond to wages, price of oil, technology, capital stock, regulations, taxes. Purchasers (consumers)—respond to business investment, government spending and taxes, foreign trade, and monetary policy. [or, buyers and sellers]

  6. Unemployment Rate, US Source: US Dept. of Labor http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

  7. Inflation in the U.S. Source: Annual Report of the President

  8. Main Macroeconomic issues for this course: Government intervention: Left/right; liberal/conservative; interventionist/free market (laissez faire) Democrat/Republican Government Deficit (and the National Debt) Depression of the 1930s. Current Crisis (2009) Globalization: tariffs or free trade, migration, exchange rates Supply Side Economics—lower taxes, reduce government regulation Monetary issues, relating to the Federal Reserve Banks, and finance Very little on the stock markets.

  9. Adam Smith: (1723-1790) Prominent Scottish Philosopher. The Wealth of Nations 1776 In a free market society, individuals, acting out of their own self interest, will be guided, as if by an invisible hand, to make socially beneficial economic decisions. Discussed on page 2. Also: benefits of free trade, criticism of mercantilism. Discussed in chapter 2

  10. David Malthus, 1766-1834 1798 Essay on the Principle of Population Overpopulation; economics as “the dismal science” Incidentally, Malthus’s ideas had a big impact on Charles Darwin.

  11. John Stuart Mill, 1806-1873 Perhaps better known as a philosopher, he made important contributions to economics, as well, among which are the theory of Infant Industry Tariffs, which we do in chapter 5. His father was the head of the East India Co., and he was given an elite, rather isolated childhood education. He was an early promoter of rights for women, which many attribute to the influence of his wife.

  12. Karl Marx, 1818-1883 Communist Manifesto, Worked with Engels on Das Kapital Criticized capitalism. Class exploitation Revolution, led by the workers

  13. Keynes John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946). General Theory (1936) Argued that unemployment during 1930s Depression could be cured by gov’t. spending and deficits

  14. Milton Friedman, 1912-2006 Most prominent advocate of a return to free market/non- governmental policies. Influence concretized under President Reagan. Also: leading ‘monetarist’ and a Nobel Prize winner. Link to Friedman’s biohttp://www.hoover.org/bios/friedman

  15. Extra Reading: Many economists first got interested in this field by reading The Worldly Philosophers, by Robert Heilbroner.

  16. US Inflation

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