Hubbard, R., Garnett, A., Lewis, P., and O'Brien, A. (2016), "Essentials of Economics 3", Third adaptation edition, Pearson Australia.
Optional: To understand the wide range of interesting issues that microeconomics can be applied to, you may want to read "Freakonomics" and/or "SuperFreakonomics" (both by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner) and/or visit the Freakonomics blog at: www.freakonomics.com. To understand current macroeconomic conditions, you may wish to visit the Reserve Bank's website at www.rba.gov.au. To keep up-to-date with management-relevant microeconomic and macroeconomic issues, you may wish to read the Australian Financial Review and/or The Economist.
Lectures will be recorded (whenever possible) and made available on MyUni. Please note that there may be occasions when the recording fails for technical reasons.
Our course will be conducted over 6 all-day sessions. All sessions will be held on Saturdays, with two weeks between each session. Each all-day session will start at 9.00am and end at 4.00pm. We will generally cover two topics on each Saturday (except when we have our mid-term test). Typically, we will cover one topic between 9.00am and 12.15pm (with a 15-minute break at about 10.30am), then break for a 30-minute lunch (12.15pm-12.45pm) and then cover a second topic between 12.45pm and 4.00pm (with a 15-minute break at about 2.15pm). As it is difficult to predict exactly how long it will take to cover each topic and I don't want to limit our in-class discussions, we may not finish our coverage of a topic in the designated session; if so, we will finish it in our next session.
free to suggest current issues that you would like us to discuss.
While you don't necessarily have to read the lecture notes prior to the relevant session, please complete all required readings and any assigned tasks (e.g., review questions) before class.
addition, I would be grateful if you could complete a SELT form and provide written comments (in addition to numeric scores) at the end of our course, as that will help me improve the course and my teaching for future students.
cover, we will not be able to go into as much depth as you would like on various issues. It is more important that you gain some knowledge of a range of economic concepts/tools rather than an in-depth knowledge of only a few. However, to partially ease your frustration, I will provide optional (non-assessable) readings and/or optional attachments to our lecture notes so that you can explore particular topics in more depth if you wish to.
The University of Adelaide expects full-time students (i.e., those taking four 3-unit course at a time) to devote a total of 48 hours per week to their studies. This translates to 24 hours per fortnight for our 3-unit course. That is, in addition to our 6 hours of class time (excluding breaks) per fortnight, you should expect to devote 18 hours per fortnight to your studies in this course.
There will be 5 tutorial assignments; each is work 5% of your total grade. The first tutorial assignment is due prior to the start of class in Session 2 (i.e., by 9.00am on September 24). To be eligible to receive a grade, you must submit your written answers to the tutorial assignment questions prior to the start of the relevant session. Late submissions will not be accepted. Instructions on how to submit your tutorial assignment answers are provided on MyUni.
I will grade all tutorial assignments submitted and post your grades on MyUni as soon as possible. I will also post suggested answers as soon as I have completed grading all assignments submitted. Your assignments and my feedback will be returned to you by no later than our next session after you submit it (and probably earlier if you submit your assignment on Turnitin). We will discuss each assignment's questions and answers in our next session (2 weeks after the assignment is submitted).
As some tutorial assignment questions may focus on issues that emerge in the news during our course, I will post tutorial assignments on MyUni as the course progresses. However, I will ensure that each tutorial assignment is available on MyUni at least 2 weeks prior to the due date.
A mid-trimester test will be held on October 22. It will comprise 15 minutes reading time and 90 minutes writing time. The test questions will be of similar style to our tutorial assignment questions. The test will be open-book and you will have significant choice in the questions that you answer. Wireless internet access will not be permitted during the test.
I will grade the mid-semester test and post the grades on MyUni as soon as possible. I will also post suggested answers after I have posted the grades. We will discuss the test's questions and answers in our subsequent session (on November 5).
I will provide further information on the mid-term test closer to the time.
The final exam will comprise 30 minutes reading time and 3 hours writing time. This exam may assess all topics covered in the course. However, as the mid-term test will focus on Topics 1-6, the final exam will focus more on Topics 7-11. The exam questions will be of similar style to those in the final exam that I set for my Trimester 1 course, which I will post on our MyUni site. The exam will be open-book and you will have significant choice in the questions that you answer. Wireless internet access will not be permitted during the test.
I will provide further information on the final exam closer to the time.
Please refer to MyUni for further instructions regarding how to submit tutorial assignments. Late submissions will not be accepted. Please retain a copy of all assignments submitted.