Memorial University of Newfoundland
ECON 3670
Applications of Choice Theory
Roberto Martinez-Espineira
Lecture 0 - Meeting session
ECON3670 Meeting session
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Introduction
– Outline description:
– Readings: Textbook, course pack and additional
readings
– Assignments
– Website
– Email ramartinezesp@
– Office AA 3087
– The course
ECON 3670- Intro meeting
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Outline description
– Books:
– Economics Uncut: A Complete Guide to Life, Death
and Misadventure. Edited by Simon W. Bowmaker,
Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2006
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Outline description
– Books:
– You are supposed to come to the class prepared, we will
go fast through the models and use the class more for
discussions
– Exam questions could come from anywhere, … as well
as “from nowhere”
– Doing the readings is essential! It will hopefully be fun
too, and not too taxing
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Outline description
– Additional readings (mainly in the course pack, so you
don’t need to buy them) are from, among others:
– The Economics of Sports, by Michael Leeds and Peter von
Allmen, Addison Wesley, 2005.
– Freakonomics A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side
of Everything. by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J Dubner,
William Morrow & Company, 2005
– Sex, Drugs & Economics - An Unconventional Intro to
Economics. 1st Edition. Diane Coyle. Thomson Southwestern, 2004.
– The Economics of Sport and Recreation by Chris Gratton and
Peter Taylor. E&FN Spon, New York (2000)
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Outline description
– Additional readings (mainly in the course pack, so you
don’t need to buy them) are from, among others:
– Friedman, David D. (1997) Hidden Order: The Economics of
Everyday Life
– Landsburg. S. (1993) The Armchair Economist.
– And different Economics journals…
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Outline description
For help with some of the core microeconomic models and
concepts used, you should consult:
– Perloff, J. (2004) Microeconomics, Third Edition, Addison
Wesley Longman, available in the reserve collection in the
library, or any other good Intermediate Microeconomics book
of your choice.
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Outline description
Two mid-term tests
Dates
Wed Wk 6 & Wed Wk 11
Weight
40% (30% best one)
NB: Midterms will not be
rescheduled, their weight
will be reallocated to the
final exam
Essay
Due on Monday Wk 12
25%
NB: Late submissions of
essays will be penalized at
the rate of 5 marks per day.
Final exam
TBAECON 3670- Intro meeting
35%
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Outline description
Website:
– I will email you with the link
– Easy to find from the MUN Economics website
– (or Google!)
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Outline description
How to find me:
– Email rmartinezesp@ (only from your MUN account!
Please write ECON 3670 somewhere in the subject
line)
– Office AA 3087
Office hours:
TUE 1:30 to 4:30, WED 12:45 to 13:45
… or by appointment
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The course
Several subthemes focus on aspects of the economics of:
– professional organized sport and of recreational sports
– prostitution, dating, and, marriage
– crime, mainly in relation with the regulation of illegal
drugs and the consumption of addictive goods
– gambling and other addictive behavior associated with
the consumption of leisure
– the entertainment industry
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The course
• We will challenge the conventional wisdom that
these behaviors should only be studied by
sociologists and psychologists
• …or worse: advocacy researchers
• We will try to stick as much as possible to a
positive approach to investigating many
controversial issues and policies, rather than
normative approach
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The course
• This course shows students how economics can be
used as an aid in understanding almost every
choice associate with human behavior
• Microeconomics and its subspecialities will help
us with that
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The course
– We will avoid big technicalities and the most complex
models
– But you have to be able to extract from a paper the
main ideas, to critically consider the main assumptions,
and to identify the conclusions.
– We will try to relate the materials in the readings to
your knowledge of Economics from other courses
– We will try to relate the materials in the readings to
your upper year Economics courses such as Labour
Economics, Microeconomics, Environmental
Economics, or Industrial Organization.
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The course
We will often ask ourselves the question:
– How would an economist think about this issue?
– What have economist done about this problem?
– Which tools did they use and how?
– Does this analysis relate to other more conventional
Economics problems?
– Basically: how do we extend the basic models of
competitive markets?
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The course
We will exploit the basic tools you acquired in your
Introductory Micro course, such as:
- Scarcity
- Marginal analysis
- Opportunity cost
- Equilibrium
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The course
– We will also learn how to interpret empirical analyses
– How to read with a critical eye reports and summaries
of empirical studies
– Further. we will anticipate the kinds of issues empirical
microeconomists must face when trying to collect data
and conduct microeconometric studies
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