Category: Economics

Exercise 1
In class, you were told about comparative advantage with examples given of businesses and industries. Yet, the idea that people specialize into their comparative advantage and then trade with others who have a different comparative advantage can also be applied inside families and partnerships.
In this exercise, I would like you to write a story. I want you to pick a relationship between two people you know well. They could be husband and wife, brother and sister, close friends, business partners, or any other close pairing. You can pick a relationship you are part of, but it could also be a relationship between others, like friends you know, family you know, or any other relationship you know well.
Describe that relationship in terms of the comparative advantages had by each side and the trade that there then is between them in terms of goods and services produced by each side. This means you must describe the things that each side of that relationship is good at and what they thus produce that is then shared (traded) with the other. Bear in mind that trade does not always need to involve money, but there has to be a clear exchange of a good or service. Also bear in mind that trade is different from co-production (like doing an activity together).
As with all the concepts we discuss, I would like you to be able to recognize in the real world the phenomena that we discuss in class. This leads to a more systematic way of perceiving the reality.
The goal of this exercise is not to explain what a comparative advantage is; it already is explained above. Rather, the goal is for you to reflect on your own experiences and memories to find examples from your own life of the concepts discussed in class. I am hoping to read some interesting stories.
Exercise 2
Read the slides and background literature on the topic of different types of economies of scale. Then please think of the organization you work for or one that you know well (like a previous job or the job of your partner, or some other organization you know a lot about).
Describe at least 3 diseconomies of scale in that organization.
Then make a judgment on whether you think the organization as a whole enjoys economies of scale overall ‘at the margin’: would the organization produce more than 10% extra if its size (in terms of people working for it, machines, offices, etc.) was 10% bigger? Argue why you think that is the case.
Exercise 3
Read the slides and extra literature in your content folder on the issue of limited liability. Then please think of the organization you work for or one that you know well (like a previous job or the job of your partner, or some other organization you know a lot about).
Who or which unit in this organization do you think has the greatest degree of limited liability (ie is held least responsible when they make mistakes)? Argue why you think this and whether you think this is optimal for the organization or not.
Who or which unit in this organization do you think has the least degree of limited liability (ie is held most responsible when they make mistakes)? Argue why you think this and whether you think this is optimal for the organization or not.
Exercise 4
Read the slides on Bitcoin.
Name a Bitcoin trading platform and give a link to the website. Then detail: i) what transaction costs you think are involved in exchanging 100 Euros into US dollars, ii) how many bitcoins one would then 3 get if one uses those US dollars to buy a certain number of bitcoins on the mentioned platform, iii) the number of US dollars one then gets when immediately selling the bitcoins just bought, and iv) the number of Euros one can then get for those US dollars. So I want you to find out (on the basis of looking up the costs or asking market participants) what would happen in each of the four steps above (buy USD with Euros, buy bitcoin with US dollars, sell bitcoin for US dollars, sell dollars for Euros). You should thus end with the number of Euros you would have left if you did the four steps above. Give references. Note that I really expect an effort into finding out the true transaction costs.
Read the slides on optimal investment strategies.
Give an example of 4 entirely different possible investments that in your opinion are almost equally risky (on their own), have almost equal ‘expected returns’, but where the risks are highly independent (like separate throws of a dice). Argue why you think they are similarly risky and with similar returns. The argue why you think the risks of each of these investments are quite unrelated.
Note that you do not need to pick high-expected return investments, or even high-risks investments. The point of the question is for you to show you have understood and can apply the principles involved in the basic idea of asset diversification.

Since ratification of the U.S. Constitution, relations among state governments and the national government have grown to be much more interdependent. Whereas states once enjoyed greater autonomy (dual federalism), the additional demands placed on government (at all levels) has fostered an evolution of federalism, whereby the federal government now plays a much more pronounced role in local and state affairs, with respect to a whole host of issues (including healthcare, education, public safety, transportation, etc.).
Describe block grants, categorical grants, and unfunded mandates. How do they demonstrate fiscal federalism?
Explain which funding mechanism states prefer. Why? Which funding mechanism does the federal government prefer? Why?
Describe how both state and federal governments participate in the provision of medical care to low-income residents.
In Arizona, low-income residents receive healthcare coverage through the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS). How is AHCCCS funded (e.g., categorical grants)? What are the eligibility requirements, and who sets them? How do the basic conditions set by the federal government constrain AHCCCS?
Assess the effectiveness of federal aid to state and local communities, particularly as it relates to healthcare coverage.
Use two to three scholarly resources to support your explanations.

There is an age-old tension between states/localities and the federal government, in regard to which level of government provides public goods more efficiently. Define what is meant by efficient in the context of allocating public goods. Explain the Tiebout hypothesis. What are the limitations of the hypothesis (i.e., factors that many complicate the efficient allocation of public goods)? Describe them. Should public goods be provided by state/local or the national government? Justify your position.

Overall, property taxes constitute a small piece of the macroeconomic pie in industrialized countries, but they are an important source of revenue for local governments. To what extent do local governments rely on property taxes? To what is property tax revenue allocated? How have voters resisted increasing property taxes, and to what end?

Describe the good. What are its main characteristics?
What are some of the substitutes and complements for the good?
Indicate whether the good is a normal good or an inferior good. Explain the reasons for your choice.
Identify and describe the main nonprice factors that could cause an increase or decrease in the demand for the good or service.
Identity and describe the main nonprice factors that could cause an increase or decrease in the supply of the good or service.
Explain how a change in demand affects the equilibrium price and quantity of the good or service.
Explain how a change in supply affects the equilibrium price and quantity of the good or service.
Based on your research of the good or service, what do you expect to happen to the demand for it over the next five years?
Based on your research of the good or service, what do you expect to happen to the supply of the good or service over the next five years?

1. Topic Selection: Select a topic from the various issues discussed in the class in the field of economic development. You may also select your choice of topic from the issues you have already addressed in weekly assignments.
(Environmental Policy and its impact on econ development: A case study of Haiti and the Dominican Republic( I AM FROM HAITI SO FEEL FREE TO MAKE THIS SOUND PERSONAL FROM A HAITIAN STANDPOINT)
2. Make sure the topic you have selected is relevant to the subject and does fit your areas of interest in the subject.
3. The title of the topic must make sense and give your audience a clear idea about the issue and focus of your research paper.
4. Your Topic selection is your first step. Once you are settled with your topic (you may also change or modify the topic title after you finish your writing depending on what you have come up with your results of the term paper), the following general organizational structure of your paper should follow:
-Introduction: includes your reason for your interest in the topic, its relevance with some examples of the issues, quotes from other writers in the same issue, importance and objective of your paper
-Literature Review: This section should include your study on this area published in different literature. You may subdivide this section into different categories of areas you have studied and summarize the findings in your own critical words. Providing proper citations is very important in this section.
-Method of Analysis: This section will include the appropriate approach of your analysis of the paper in the next section. This approach could be qualitative, quantitative, or both depending on your time and resource constraints to take the right approach. This methodology will clearly state the model structure you will be using and how you will collect data/information with sources (primary or secondary and why). You will also justify the approach you have taken, given other alternatives you could have.
-Analysis: Based on your approach mentioned in the previous section, this section will be the main content of your paper. This section will cover your data/information, analytical approach, tables, graphs, etc.
-Conclusion: Your findings in the Analysis section will give you a clue to conclude very briefly, which will also include your remarks explaining how you have fulfilled your objectives in your Introduction Section at the outset.
The above section will be followed by your list of references.
The abstract (the summary of the entire paper) should be written after finishing your paper and must be placed on Page 1 of your paper. However, Your paper must have a cover page followed by a table of contents before page 1. I will go over that in more detail in the class.

This week’s discussion topic is about Economic Indicators, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Quality of Life, Economic Freedom, Employment and others indicated below.
The ultimate question for this week is: “Is GDP a good measure of national economic well being?”
In your response you must demonstrate your personal research, which must include more than one of the following websites:
GDP per capita. World Bank. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?view=map
The Human Development Index (HDI). United Nations Development Programme. Human Development Reports. http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi
The Index of Economic Freedom. The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. http://www.heritage.org/index/about
Corruption Perceptions Index. Transparency International. https://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview
The Knowledge Index. World Bank Institute. World Bank
World Happiness Report. Helliwell, John F, Layard, Richard, and Sachs, Jeffrey. https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2020
You must complete your research by visiting an “Economic Calendar” website, such as https://tradingeconomics.com/calendar for a foreign country or the US. In the menu at the top of the page select the dates such as today or the last few days, or months, select high impact, select a country and save your selection. You must analyze the past evolution, current economic situation and perspective.
You can research on the internet economic news, the topics you selected to support your views.

Rubric.
In your response you must demonstrate your personal research, which must include more than one of the websites indicated above and the Economic Calendar:
Your grade is based on the rubric below.
You are required to post your main post and respond to at least two peers, to make a minimum of three posts totaling at least 500 words.
Include a word count on each post. All of your posts should sum to a minimum of 500 words. Each post submitted should be between 150 and 250 words. Keep them short, specific, and clear.
Remember to document all use of sources by using citations and references. These should be in APA format APA format – Alternative Formats . Please review Plagiarism Powerpoints Plagiarism Powerpoints – Alternative Formats .
Now click on the “Week 2 DISCUSSION” title above to go to the discussion forum. You can start a new thread by clicking on the Create Thread button at the top. You can also respond to an existing post by clicking the Respond button at the bottom of the post.

The 300 word essay is pretty much asking you to consider all 3 points of views mentioned. Then ask yourself what are the shortcomings and then come up with an answer.
Essay I
Essential of International Economics
Below I present three views of the tension among equity (Lycurgus), efficiency (Smith), and prosperity (Keynes). Piketty offers his views on the status of inequality but I do not find them all that helpful to understand the trends from almost 2800 years or on how to solve the seemingly eternal inequality. Express your view in a 300-word essay.

Lycurgus (820 BCE): Thesis
“After the creation of the thirty senators, his next task, and, indeed, the most hazardous he ever undertook, was the making a new division of their lands. For there was an extreme inequality amongst them, and their state was overloaded with a multitude of indigent and necessitous persons, while its whole wealth had centered upon a very few. To the end, therefore, that he might expel from the state arrogance and envy, luxury and crime, and those yet more inveterate diseases of want and superfluity, he obtained of them to renounce their properties, and to consent to a new division of the land, and that they should live all together on an equal footing; merit to be their only road to eminence, and the disgrace of evil, and credit of worthy acts, their one measure of difference between man and man. … Not contented with this, he resolved to make a division of their movables too, that there might be no odious di­stinction or inequality left amongst them; but finding that it would be very dangerous to go about it openly, he took another course, and defeated their avarice by the following stratagem : he commanded that all gold and silver coin should be called in, and that only a sort of money made of iron should be current, a great weight and quantity of which was but very little worth; so that to lay up twenty or thirty pounds there was required a pretty large closet, and, to remove it, nothing less than a yoke of oxen. With the diffusion of this money, at once a number of vices were banished from Lacedaemon; for who would rob another of such a coin? Who would unjustly detain or take by force, or accept as a bribe, a thing which it was not easy to hide, nor a credit to have, nor indeed of any use to cut in pieces? For when it was just red hot, they quenched it in vinegar, and by that means spoilt it, and made it almost incapable of being worked.”[1]

Smith (1776 CE): Antithesis
At the other extreme, we have the expansion in prosperity of the 18th and 19th centuries in which Laissez-faire ruled as an economic system. During that time, productive and commercial transactions among individuals were free from any form of government interventionism not because it was not possible, but because such intervention was redundant. Indeed, individuals’ actions “…are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without know­ing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.”[2] In other words, the workings of the invisible hand will lead, automatically and without being noticed, to an egalitarian society.

Keynes (1936 CE): Synthesis
Keynes extends the list of functions of the government to include prosperity. Specifically, he indicates that it would “…be possible by a right analysis of the problem to cure the disease [inequities] whilst preserving efficiency [prosperity] and freedom.”[3] The crux of Keynes’ middle of the road is that “I conceive, therefore, that a somewhat comprehensive socialisation of investment will prove the only means of securing an approximation to full employment; ….”[4]

Piketty (2022 CE): Progress?
““Give me a reason to be optimistic?” By looking at my historical evidence, by thinking about the big picture, I have become more optimistic. I was a bit puzzled that many people looking at “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” came away with a pessimistic conclusion. I’m trying to show that the key in history is not the big catastrophes but the positive political construction of an alternative, and this process started with the French Revolution, the U.S. revolution. This process toward more equality is more deeply rooted in our modern ethos and modern political cultures than most people believe. I remember in 2014 having a public discussion with Elizabeth Warren in Boston. I was talking about a progressive wealth tax with a rate of 5 percent per year or 10 percent per year on billionaires. She looked at me like, Wow, that’s too much. Joe Biden today, a centrist Democrat — who voted for Tax Reform Act — is coming in with a wealth tax. Things can change pretty fast.” See the whole interview at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview.html Links to an external site.

[1] Plutarch’s Lives, Lycurgus, p. 94
[2] Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations page 181; emphasis added
[3] Keynes, General Theory page 372.
[4] Keynes, General Theory page 378.Emphasis added

https://criticalcommons.org/view?m=gFlRFljegLinks to an external site.
Watch the above video. Once you have done this post a response to each of the bullets below:
Describe how helmet laws and medicine safety caps could follow the adage “good intentions, bad results”. Consider the potential unintended consequences of installing a traffic signal at an intersection in a school zone? Can you make a case for not installing the signal?
Give one example of where you have been impacted first hand by te “unintended consequences” of a policy at home, school, or by government.

Please Note: Once your assignment is submitted and graded, the grade will be final, no re-submissions will be allowed.
Questions:
CHAPTER 6 (Part 1 & 2) – Legal Descriptions, Title & Deeds and Estates:
1. List and DEFINE the 3 major methods used to legally describe and locate land.
2. Name and DEFINE the 5 legal methods of acquiring title to property.
3. DESCRIBE in detail the difference between a Grant Deed and a Quitclaim Deed.
4. What is a Freehold Estate? What is the estate that is the most complete form of ownership? What is an estate in remainder? Be specific.
5. What does ownership in Severalty mean ? Name and Describe the 4 unities of Joint Tenancy.