In preparation for the Second Term Test, please see a lot of sample questions and solutions below. Note the cases where I say we have not yet covered particular questions. And do let me know if anything is unclear.
I will be holding office hours tomorrow in KC263. But please note the time: 12 noon to 2pm. Several students have yet to collect their assignments and term tests.
Please find attached the solutions for Term Test 1, in .pdf format. Please take a close look at these, in order to gain a clear sense of where your answers might be improved.
Regrade policy: If, after looking over the solutions carefully, you are convinced that you have been graded too harshly, you may request a regrade. To that end, you must provide a careful explanation _in writing_ that refers to the posted solutions. I will then regrade the whole test. (Please note: In the past, on occasion, scores have gone down following a regrade. This is not a one-way bet.) Please note also: any requests for a re-grade must be handed in next week in class at the latest.
Please stick to the two-page limit with your writing revision.
I hope you found the term test to be reasonable. The tests will be returned on Thursday.
In terms of your revision of the First Writing Assignment, a couple of remarks:
You should try to make the argument in your revision as strong and convincing as possible. If this means changing your argument a lot, following the first round, then do not feel contrained to follow the shape of your earlier argument.
In terms of the brief 'response' note that you are expected to write, no more than half a page is needed.
Just let me know if you have any questions.
Please see more sample questions (and solutions) below, including one relating to utility functions. Let me know if you have any questions about these.
Someone very correctly pointed out that 'a=1/10,' not 1/12 for part 5c) in the first Sample Test Questions -- now corrected.
Please note: the length of those first Sample Test Questions is less than you should expect on Thursday's test.
David Schindler: I was hoping that his recent lecture would be posted online, as it was very illuminating. That has yet to happen. One of the papers he referred to was published in a prestigious science journal last year -- see a quick summary at http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/08/30/us-oilsands-environment-idUSTRE67T3H920100830
Let us understand the essence of the measurement exercise he carried out, as it is valuable. (The diagram I drew may not have captured the full essence.)
Suppose a river has certain natural (background) level of water pollution, as is the case in the Athabascar Tar Sands region. At some point down the river, there is a factory that may release further pollutants.
If one places just one pollution monitor downstream from the factory, one cannot gauge what the _separate_ contribution of the factory to pollution is. This allows the firm to claim that the total pollution effect is just due to background factors.
What Schindler did in the study is clever. He placed a monitor upstream of the factory and one downstream. The difference can then be accurately interpreted as the separate contribution of the factory.
Term Test 1 will take place next week, November 10, 2011, in the usual class, starting at 12:10pm. It will last 1 hour 40 minutes, and will be closed-book.
In preparing for that, please make sure you understand the content of the notes well. And please attempt the sample questions -- more to follow shortly (plus solutions).
If you did not collect your essay today, you can pick it up from room 121 in the Kaneff Centre. Please ask Amber for the ECO336 essays. You will find the instructions for the revision posted below.
I mis-spoke today: Joshua, the grader, was only around until 3pm. He will be available from 2-3pm next Thursday, if you have grading-related questions.
Please see sample test questions and solutions below.
Please see solutions to the 'debt' questions posted below. Just let me know if anything is unclear.
Just to mention, there will be a public lecture next Tuesday in room 140, University College on the St. George campus, starting at 4:30pm. (The venue is right next to where the UTM bus drops people off at Hart House.) It looks interesting, and relevant to some of our themes. Details are posted at
http://www.eeb.utoronto.ca/seminars/2011/the-uc-graham-lecture-the-oil-sands-economic-saviour-or-environmental-disaster
Please see attached.
Please find attached two (handwritten) notes intended to clarify our discussion from the previous class.
The first note makes the point that we can carry out our discussion of investing in terms of interest rates, rather than yields: doing so is simpler, while being very analogous.
The second note improves on the notation used last class. It also describes an investing rule in the absence of risk considerations that we will use as a basis for our discussion next time.
I have received several queries regarding the First Writing Assignment. Here (i.e. click on "Here") is a .pdf file that attempts to address these in one place. If anything is unclear, please let me know.
Please attempt the questions posted below on debt and discounting.
Efficiency and equity: you will have seen coverage of the recent anti-capitalism demonstrations in a number of major cities, including Toronto. We will be getting into the underlying debate soon. From a political economy perspective, if capitalism does not deliver prosperity, moves to increase redistribution become more intense, which is what we are witnessing.
Especially for those who would like to make an early start on this, the first writing assignment is now posted below. I will discuss this next Thursday in class.
The relevant turnitin information is as follows. Just let me know if you have any difficulty.
Class ID: 4487245
Enrollment password: IB150 (which happens to be our room number also)
Please find some new sample questions below.
Building on our discussion from last week, please see the following note on banning bottled water (partially).
There was a short blog by Paul Krugman in the NY Times a couple of days ago that is relevant to our themes, polemic aside. See
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/markets-can-be-very-very-wrong/
The Krugman blog, in turn, makes reference to a stunning academic paper that computes the air pollution externalities associated with each industry in the US, abstracting from concerns about global warming. For those who may be interested, see
http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~mcmillan/MMN2011.pdf
I will say a couple of things in class about this.
First, congratulations! You must be one of the select few who have managed to track down this elusive website. This will not be in vain: first, I have posted and will continue to post important course-related material here. (And second, there will be a bonus: prior to the first Term Test, the answer to one test question will be posted here -- those students who are still looking for the course to show up on Blackboard may well miss it, unfortunately.)
A serious point: every student in the course needs to be familiar with the rules that we went over on the first day of class. If you missed that, you would be well-advised to have a word with me. Those rules are fair, and you can rest assured that I will be applying them. Unfamiliarity with the rules would be no defence if any students were to infringe them (which is just to say, it is your responsibility to be familiar with the rules.)
Please let me know if you have any questions about any aspect of the course. A note on the weighty topic of Global Warming is in production, and will follow shortly, relevant to the predicament facing the planet _and_ to the first writing assignment.
Please find a second set of sample questions and suggested solutions below.
Please find attached a note that builds on our class discussion, in .pdf format.
The first sample question is posted below (with solutions on the second page).
The bookstore should have copies of the recommended text for the course shortly. Apologies for the delay.
Please discuss key economic arguments for and against banning smoking entirely. Do you think this is likely to be a sensible policy relative to the current situation, in which smoking is regulated to some degree but not banned outright? (6 points)
A consumer has preferences over a good $A$ and a good $B$, the quantities of each being written $x_A$ and $x_B$.
Assume that the consumer's tastes can be represented by regular downward-sloping indifference curves, convex to the origin (i.e. they get flatter as one moves in a horizontal direction).)
a) Consider a point $W$ on an indifference curve, drawn with $x_A$ on the horizontal exis and $x_B$ on the vertical axis. At that point, the consumer has a marginal utility of good $A = 4$ and the marginal utility of good $B = 2$.
What will the slope of the consumer's indifference curve be through that point? Please show your calculations. (4 points)
b) What is the intuition for your result in part a)? (3 points)
c) Suppose the consumer faces a relative price of -2 (so P_A/P_B = -2). If the consumer is at a point on the budget line for which the slope of the indifference curve is -3, is the consumer maximizing utility? If not, what adjustments should the consumer make? Please be specific. (3 points)