Lakeland Community College
Department of Economics
Course:
Course Code:
Semester:
Professor:
Phone:
Office:
Email:
Credit Hours:
Pre-requisite:
Principles of Macroeconomics (ONLINE)
ECON2500
Summer, 2010
Dr. Rolando A. Santos
(440)525-7417
B2056
rsantos@lakelandcc.edu
Three (3)
None
Required Textbook:
Economics: Principles and Application. By Rolando A. Santos, Kendall Hunt
Publishing Company, Second Edition, Revised Printing (red background). 2009
Dubuque, Iowa.
The Wall Street Journal
Course Objectives:
It is important that students understand macroeconomic principles and theory and are able
to apply them to real world settings. At the end of the course, the student is able:
1. To understand macroeconomic theories and concepts and its applications to real
world problems.
2. To analyze and solve macroeconomic problems using the theories and concepts.
3. To realize the significance of macroeconomics in the business and global
perspective.
4. To develop an analytical way of solving economic issues and a logical way of
economic thinking.
Learning Outcomes:
The Economics faculty has outlined specific learning outcomes that it expects all students
of ECON 2500 to have upon completion of the course. Specific learning outcomes
expected from the Principles of Macroeconomics course are:
1. Understand how economics is a social science that draws conclusions based on
hypotheses, theories and data in order to understand human behavior
2. Understand basic macroeconomic terminology and concepts, including the
distinction between real and nominal magnitudes
3. Understand the national income accounts
4. Comprehend the nature of the business cycles
5. Comprehend the determinates of important macroeconomic variables, including
the level of income, the level of employment, the unemployment rate, the natural
rate of unemployment, the price level, the inflation rate, productivity and the rate
of interest.
6. Comprehend the supply and demand for money
7. Comprehend the Federal Reserve System
8. Comprehend the development of, and be able to apply aggregate demand and
aggregate supply
9. Comprehend the effects of fiscal and monetary policies
10. Comprehend the basics of theories of macroeconomic instability
11. Comprehend unemployment and inflation tradeoffs
12. Comprehend the effects of the federal government’s budget deficit
13. Comprehend the concept of long run growth and policies to affect growth
14. Comprehend comparative advantage
15. Comprehend the determinants of foreign trade flows and exchange rates, and their
effects on the domestic economy
16. Apply economic reasoning to better understand and critically evaluate real world
circumstances and events.
About the Course:
Macroeconomics is the study of aggregate economic activity. As such it attempts to
explain how, for the entire economic system, the level of employment and output, the
level of prices, the rate of growth of output, and the rate of price level change are
determined. Presuming that capability, macroeconomics proceeds to provide government
policy prescriptions for improving the performance of the economic system.
This course is designed to provide a compact but comprehensive presentation of current
mainstream macroeconomic theory, measurement and policy making. The introductory
chapters in part I required students to formally recognize the scientific nature of
economic analysis; and provides the logical foundation for undertaking the difficult
analytical task of constructing models of macroeconomy by discussing the goals of
macroeconomic policy.
Accessing the Course
Blackboard, which is the Online Instructional system used at Lakeland Community
College, can be found online at go to http://lkn.lakelandcc.edu/.
Select Login on the Blackboard page. You will be prompted to enter a User Name and
Password. For username, obtained from your Lakeland email account, Firstname initial +
full last name + some number (eg. Jsmith12@mail.lakelandcc.edu has the username of
jsmith12). For password, use your Lakeland Identification Number (LID). You will
need your ID and password whenever you want to log on to Blackboard.
Once you have logged on to Blackboard, the entry page contains a course list with links
to any course you are enrolled in that has a Blackboard component.
Click on the link for the ECON2500 Online Course.
The course home page should show up on your screen. This page has a globe, the course
name and announcements in the center.
Student Support:
If you encounter any technical difficulties you may contact the Lakeland helpdesk for
assistance through email (helpdesk@lakelandcc.edu) or by phone (440)525-5112, ask for
the helpdesk.
Navigating the Site
This section identifies links to course content. The buttons for these links are found on
the left hand side of your screen.
Announcements
Look for new announcements each time you log in to the class. They appear on the
course home page.
Communication
Use this link to the Discussion Boards, email, and other communication features.
External Links
External links connect you to websites related to the topics we will study during the
course.
Tools:
Use this link to find the Digital Drop Box and to check your grades, along with other
functions.
How to Succeed in this Course
1. Regular participation in the class, especially during the discussion forum, is
critical.
2. Complete all assignments on time and follow all instructions. Always check the
announcement board (daily).
3. Get to know your fellow students and your professor, beginning with Week 1.
4. Seek out new sources of information related to this subject and share with peers.
5. Ask questions. Please note that this is not a 24/7 operation. You can email me if
you have any questions but I will respond to you within 48 hours. If you have not
heard from me, you can call me through my phone.
6. Be respectful of other student’s divergent opinions, although lively discussions
are encouraged.
7. Use the book website for practice exercises and multiple choice practice sets.
8. Answer keys for some selected problems will be posted in Blackboard a week
before the test.
9. Please use Mozilla Firefox 3.0 or 3.5 as suggested by the IT Department of
Lakeland Community College.
To the Student
Many students find economics a difficult subject because, unlike many other courses a
college student takes, economics cannot be mastered through memorization. Economics
relies on economic theories to explain real world occurrences. An economic theory is
simply a logical explanation of why the facts fit together in a particular way.
The successful student will be the one who learns that economics is built upon a number
of fairly simple and easy-to-understand propositions – these propositions are typically
little more than common sense and should not intimidate a student.
Another factor that can make economics difficult is that like other disciplines-economics
has its own specific vocabulary, many of which may already be familiar to you.
Economists, however, use the vocabulary of economics in a very exact way, and often the
common usage of a term is not the same as the economic usage.
Academic Honesty
The Academic Honesty Code of Lakeland Community College will be strictly enforced.
In accordance with the university policy, any attempt to cheat on quizzes or exams will
be result in an automatic “F” in the course and a report will be forwarded to the Dean.
Class Attendance and Participation:
You are expected to attend class consistently, do the assigned homework and participate
in class discussion board. Class discussion boards are extremely important and low
grades are often associated with those who choose not to participate.
Grading:
Discussion Board/Assignments
First Long Exam
Second Long Exam
Final Exams
20%
20%
30%
30%
Total
100%
*Note: Class standing includes forum discussions and assignments. Assignments are not
graded. You get credit for submitting your assignment. You can email or drop it through
the digital dropbox.
All questions on the exams will be from the material covered in the lecture notes,
chapters assigned in the syllabus. Exam questions are multiple choice and essays. You
will be given one hour to take the quiz. Please answer the questions carefully because
you cannot change your answers once you wrote it. You can take the test anytime
within the time required for each topics covered.
Grading Scale:
A
=
B
=
C
=
D
=
F
=
90-100%
80-89%
70-79%
60-69%
below 60%
COURSE OUTLINE
Optional Online Orientation: Wed, 6/9th, 12pm, C3079
1. Introduction (Chapter 1-2) Date: 6/14-6/20
a. Methodology and a Global View
b. Nature of Economic Choice
c. Production Possibility Curve
d. Circular Flow of Economic Activity
2. Theory of Demand and Supply (Chapter 3) Date: 6/14-6/20
a. Reading and Working with Graphs
b. Law of Demand and Supply
c. Market Equilibrium
d. Dynamics of Demand and Supply
3. National Income Accounting (Chapter 6) Date: 6/21-6/27
a. Measures of output
b. Importance of macroeconomic measurement
c. Expenditure vs income approach
d. Measuring the price level
e. GDP and social welfare.
4. Inflation (Chapter 7) Date: 6/21-6/27
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
What is inflation?
Measuring inflation
Consequences of inflation
Cost-push vs demand-pull inflation
Hyperinflation vs stagflation
5. Unemployment (Chapter 6) Date: 6/28-7/4
a. Types of unemployment
b. Macroconsequences of unemployment
c. Natural Rate of Unemployment
d. Measuring Unemployment
First Long Exam: 6/28-7/4
Note: You have to take this exam within this time period. I will take it out from the
website after this date. If you do not take the test within this period, your grade for this
test is 0 (zero)!
6. The Inflation-Unemployment Relationship (Special Topic)Date: 7/5-7/11
a. The Phillip’s curve
b. Stagflation
c. The natural rate hypotheses
d. Policy Implications
7. Business Cycle (Chapter 8) Date: 7/5-7/11
a. Historical Cycles
b. Phases of the cycles
c. Noncyclical fluctuations
d. Real Business Cycles
e. Implications
8. Aggregate Spending (Chapter 9) Date: 7/5-7/11
a. Aggregate supply vs aggregate demand
b. Macro equilibrium
c. Theory of Consumption
d. Theory Savings
e. Leakage from the circular flow
f. Theory of investments
9. Equilibrium National Output in the Keynesian Model (Chapter 9) Date: 7/127/18
a. Total spending at full employment
b. Expenditure-output approach
c. Inflationary vs recessionary gap
d. The multiplier effect
e. Equilibrium income
Second Long Exam: 7/12-7/18
Note: You have to take the test within this time period. If you missed it your grade for
this exam will be 0 (zero)!
10. Fiscal Policy (Chapter 10 Date: 7/19-7/25
a. The nature of fiscal policy
b. Discretionary vs automatic stabilizers
c. Alternatives to government spending
d. Tax and government multipliers
e. Public debts, Crowding Out effect
f. Economic implications
g. Ricardian Equivalence
11. Money and Banking (Chapter 11) Date: 7/19-7/25
a. The functions of money
b. Demand and supply of money
c. Creation of Money
d. The banking system: multiple-deposit expansion
12. Federal Reserve System (Chapter 12) Date: 7/19-7/25
a. Structure of the Federal Reserve
b. Instruments/Tools of Monetary Policy
c. Monetary Policy, equilibrium GDP and price level
d. Effectiveness of monetary policy
13. International Trade (Chapter 13) Date: 7/26-8/1
a. Importance of world trade
b. Economic basis of trade
c. Specialization and comparative advantage
d. Tariffs
14. Exchange Rates and Balance of Payments (Chapter 14) Date: 7/26-8/1
a. Financing International Trade
b. Balance of Payments
c. Foreign Exchange Markets
d. Flexible vs Fixed Exchange Rates
e. Causes of Trade Deficits.
Final Examination: Last Week of Class: 8/2-8/6
Note: You have to take the test within this time period. If not, you will end up with a
zero grade for this test.
Other References:
Arnold, Roger, Macroeconomics. 4th edition. Southwestern Publishing, Cincinnati, OH
1998.
Baumol , William and Blinder, Alan S. Economics: Principles and Policy. 5th edition,
San Diego:Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991.
Dolan, Edwin C., and Lindsey, David E. Economics. 5th edition. Chicago: The Dryden
Press, 1990.
McConnell, Campbell R., and Stanley Brice. Economics. 12th edition. McGraw Hill
Inc., 1997.
Statistical Resources:
Economic Report of the President. Supt. Of Documents, US Government Print,
Washington, DC.
Frumkin, Norman. Guide to Economic Indicators. Third Edition. ME Sharpe, London,
England. 2000.
The Economist. The Economist Newspaper Ltd., Boulder, CO.
Far Eastern Economic Review. Dow Jones Company, New Jersey, USA
World Development Report. The World Bank, 1998-99 Oxford University Press.
Statistical Abstract of the US. US Department of Commerce. Washington, DC 1949present.
Note: This syllabus is subject to revision due to extenuating circumstances or to
maintain academic standards. Notice of any changes will be provided to you in
written form.