ECON 1220B

Contemporary Economic Thinking

2nd Term, 2016-2017
Lecture Hours and Location:
Mon 12:30pm - 3:15pm (M05-07); YIA LT7  
Instructor: YUNG Chor-Wing Linda 
Office: ELB 1010
Phone: 3943-8192
E-mail: cwyung186@cuhk.edu.hk
Office Hours: Wed 10:30am -11:30am or by appointment
Teaching Assistant: TAO Hanyi  
Office: CKB 513  
Phone: 3943-5978
E-mail: hanyi.tao@link.cuhk.edu.hk  
Office Hours: Tue 9:30am -10:30am or by appointment  
Course Description:  

This course mainly explores the way contemporary economists analyse current social problems/issues. Through reading and discussing the current issues and related works of contemporary economists, important economic theories will be highlighted and major current issues will be exposed. The aim of this course is to provide students with a preliminary overview of economic theories and applied concepts.

 

 
Recommended Textbooks:

There is no single book that acts as a core text for this course. Instead, the course will be based on a lot of articles from various source. However frequent reference will be made to:

  • Levitt, Steven D & Stephen J. Dubner (2005), Freakonomics.
  • Levitt, Steven D & Stephen J. Dubner (2009), SuperFreakonomics.
  • Stock, Wendy A. (2013), Introduction to Economics: Social Issues and Economic Thinking.

Course Assessment Scheme:
Assignments & activities 25%
Mid-term 30%
Final 45%
Course Activities:
  • Assignments
There will be 2 written assignments throughout the course. All assignments are equally weighted. Each assignment will be posted on Blackboard one week prior to due date. Please note that no late assignments will be graded.
  • Online activity
This is an activity that aims to encourage students to write up their own Multiple Choice and/or True or False questions that is related to the topics covered in class. These submissions will become a pool of questions that will be released to those who participated. Great activity for applying the theories to reality and for fellow classmates to review the course material.
  • Tutorials and in class activity
Tentatively, tutorials, discussions and group work are held in class. It will be in the format of activities in class, group assignments or going through some tutorial questions and some difficult assignment problems.
  • Mid-term (27th Feburary 2017) YIA LT7 (tentative)
Please note carefully the date, time and venue of the mid-term; there will be no makeup exam for the mid-term.  This is not negotiable.  If you miss the mid-term, due to a documented illness or emergency, and have received my approval, your final exam score will receive the weight of the mid-term in addition to its own weight. 
  • Final  (time and date will be announced later)

Final will be arranged by the University, please observe the date and venue.  The University has very strict regulations on how the final exam works. So please make sure you can make it.

For exchange students, please note that early departure is NOT a valid reason for not taking the final examination at the time scheduled by the University.
Tentative Topics and Schedule:
Week  
1 Introduction and Background, Cost and Benefit, Marginal Decision Rule
2 Production Possibilities, Demand and Supply
3 Market Efficiency, Excess Demand & Supply
4 Chinese New Year
5 Elasticity
6 Production, Fixed and Variable Factor & Cost
7 Market Structure - Perfect Competition
8 Mid-term
9 Market Structure - Imperfect Competition, Price Discrimination
10 Tragedy of Commons and Ownership
11 Why go to University? - Education
12 Wage Differential
13 Incentives, Crime and Punishment
14 Game Theory & Asymmetric Information
15 Easter
 
Learning Outcomes:
After completing the course the students should
  • have a basic exposure to some fundamental economic concepts.
  • be able to develop critical opinions to assess misconceptions of current economic policies or key issues around the world.
  • be able to apply economic thinking to their daily lives and decisions.
Note: 

Attention is drawn to University policy and regulations on honesty in academic work, and to the disciplinary guidelines and procedures applicable to breaches of such policy and regulations.  Details may be found at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/policy/academichonesty/ . 

With each assignment, students will be required to submit a signed declaration that they are aware of these policies, regulations, guidelines and procedures.  For group projects, all students of the same group should be asked to sign on the declaration.
For assignments in the form of a computer-generated document that is principally text-based and submitted via the plagiarism detection engine VeriGuide, the statement, in the form of a receipt, will be issued by the system upon students’ uploading of the soft copy of the assignment.  Assignments without the receipt will not be graded by teachers.  Only the final version of the assignment should be submitted via VeriGuide.