This book contains essays and revision notes for Microeconomics at the undergraduate level. This book includes the following topics: - Utility Curves; - Perfect Competition vs. Monopoly; - Oligopoly; - Collusion; - Monopolistic Competition; - Price Discrimination; - X-Efficiency; - Why do Firms Exist?; - Negative Externalities; - Positive Externalities; - Public Goods; - Adverse Selection; - General Equilibrium; - Efficiency Wages; - Minimum Wages and Unemployment; - Arrow-Pratt Risk-Aversion
This book contains essays and revision notes for Macroeconomics at the undergraduate level. This book includes the following topics: - Keynes vs. the Classics; - Keynes vs. Say's Law; - Keynes and the Neoclassical Synthesis; - IS-LM; - Keynes and Disequilibrium Economics; - Monetarism; - New Classical Economics; - Real Business Cycle Theory; - Kalecki's Trade Cycle; - Minsky's Financial Instability Hypothesis; - Harrod-Domar vs. Solow; - The Solow Model; - Endogenous Growth Theory; - Cambridge Capital Controversy; - The Mundell-Fleming Model; - Dornbusch's Overshooting Exchange Rate Model
This book reflects the state of the art in nonlinear economic dynamics, providing a broad overview of dynamic economic models at different levels. The wide variety of approaches ranges from theoretical and simulation analysis to methodological study. In particular, it examines the local and global asymptotical behavior of both macro- and micro- level mathematical models, theoretically as well as using simulation. It also focuses on systems with one or more time delays for which new methodology has to be developed to investigate their asymptotic properties. The book offers a comprehensive summary of the existing methodology with extensions to the more complex model variants, since considerations on bounded rationality of complex economic behavior provide the foundation underlying choice-theoretic and policy-oriented studies of macro behavior, which impact the real macro economy. It includes 13 chapters addressing traditional models such as monopoly, duopoly and oligopoly in microeconomics and Keynesian, Goodwinian, and Kaldor–Kaleckian models in macroeconomics. Each chapter presents new aspects of these traditional models that have never been seen before. This work renews the past wisdom and reveals tomorrow's knowledge.
This dissertation contains three essays on topics in applied microeconomics. The first essay addresses effective pedagogical tools, and the latter two essays estimate the effects of two distinct tax policies on nutrient consumption. In Chapter 1, we study a novel video-based textbook for intermediate microeconomics. Using a field experiment involving about 400 undergraduates, we estimate the effectiveness of watching videos on exam scores. We find that students experimentally induced to watch more videos perform significantly better on the midterm and final exams. We find no negative spillovers to other courses within the quarter of the experiment, and we find sustained takeup of the videos in the following quarter. In Chapter 2, we study the 1-cent-per-ounce sweetened beverage tax in Cook County, the largest tax (in terms of population affected) of its kind in the United States and the only tax revoked to date. We find that the tax significantly decreases sugar purchases while active and has no lasting effects after the tax is revoked. We find that the tax has the largest sugar-reducing effects for high consumers of regular soda and those who live far from the border of the taxed jurisdiction. We weigh the welfare consequences of the tax by estimating the cost of living increase and find that each gram of sugar reduced cost 3.5 to 6.6 cents. In Chapter 3, I examine the effects of the 2008 Economic Stimulus Act payments on nutrient purchases. I find that households with less than two months of income in savings increase total calories purchased in the month following receipt of the stimulus payment. Interestingly, the composition of the increased calories is not representative of the pre-stimulus nutrient bundle. Households greatly increase sugar purchases and do not increase fiber or protein purchases. I do not find evidence of sustained changes in nutrient purchases.
The three chapters of this dissertation use tools of applied microeconomics to study topics related to education and regulation. The first chapter, "Where Doctors Work," studies how openings and closures of medical schools in the United States have affected the geographical distribution of doctors. The principal contribution is the construction of a novel dataset based on the American Medical Association's comprehensive physician directories. Using both an individual-level approach and a broad county-level, differences-in-differences strategy, I show that medical school location influences the geographical distribution of doctors, signaling a potential lever for policymakers to address the ongoing shortage of rural physicians.The second chapter, "University Presidencies at a Glance," examines wage-setting in the context of university presidents. Using data from The Chronicle of Higher Education, my coauthors and I study determinants of salary in both public and private settings. University size is the overriding factor in salary considerations, although alumni and internal hires are often willing to take a small cut in wages. Remarkably, universities setting pay for presidents seem to behave similarly to large companies setting pay for CEOs. The final chapter, "Immigrants in the Age of Information: Earnings, Language Skills, and Technology," studies immigrant earnings and how the returns to education vary with language skills. I additionally provide results and summary statistics regarding the expanding female immigrant workforce, which generally mirrors the results for male immigrants, with some notable caveats.
The essay plans contained in the book cover the most commonly asked questions on each syllabus area of microeconomics and macroeconomics. The author has used a wealth of experience in teaching and examining in economics to provide a useful manual for all students of the subject. Ernie Jowsey provides clear, practical help both in preparing material and in writing up the final essay. The book has a section providing advice on how to write essays in the subject of economics, and each essay plan is organised according to the same structure for clarity (Introduction; Main Arguments; Conclusion; Further Reading). Most are illustrated with a simple figure. The book functions as a summary of important topics and provides the student with a proactive method of learning and revision. Working through 100 Essay Plans in Economics can therefore be used as alternative way of covering the introductory syllabus alongside the economics principles texts. This makes the book an invaluable learning aid to students embarking on first year undergraduate economics courses, as well as to those preparing for essay paper examinations in economics.
This book covers several areas of economic theory and political philosophy from the perspective of Austrian Economics and libertarianism. As such, it deals with Epistemology and Methodology, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Labor Economics, International Economics, Political Philosophy, Law and Public Policy, all from the Austro-libertarian perspective. Hence, this book offers an integrated view of libertarianism and Austrian economics in the light of recent debates in the areas of economic science and political philosophy. Moreover, it builds from the foundations of the Austrian approach (epistemology and methodology), while the latter material deals with its application to the individual from the microeconomic perspective, which in turn allows an exploration of subjects in macroeconomics. Additionally, this work applies Austro-libertarianism to law, politics, and public policy. Thus, it offers a unified view of the entire approach, in a logical progression, allowing the readers to judge this perspective in full. Futerman and Block say that their book is not a manual, which I suppose it is not. But it is a collection of highly pertinent essays, from which you can understand what is mistaken in the orthodoxy of economics, law, and politics. The central term of art in Austrian economics is that phrase “human action.” It is the exercise of human will, not the blind bumping of one molecule against another or one organism against another, as in the physical sciences... Futerman and Block distinguish Austrian economics as a scientific enterprise based on liberty of the will from “libertarianism” as an advocacy based on policies implied by such liberty. “Although Austrian economics is positive and libertarianism is normative,” they write, “this book shows how both are related; how each can support the other.” Indeed they do. Deirdre N. McCloskey, PhD UIC Distinguished Professor of Economics and of History Emerita, Professor of English Emerita, Professor of Communication Emerita, University of Illinois at Chicago
These demonstrate that economic downturns reduce the overall share of contractors, suggesting that contracting is mostly used on the margin as a supplement to regular employer-employee relationships, rather than as a replacement for those relationships.
My dissertation consists of three essays, each of which implements different data specification schemes to econometrically analyze specific topics in the realm of applied microeconomics and microeconometrics. Three separate questions are asked, and economic data is employed to empirically test the validity of alternative answers. These essays are encapsulated in ranging economic fields, but unified in that microeconomic principles and data analysis methods are employed. The initial essay, which is co-authored with Andrew Hussey and Alex Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy, titled "HIV and Recent Trends in Abortion Rates" tests an empirical link between the introduction of HIV/AIDS into the overall population and its possible impact on unwanted pregnancies as realized in lower abortions rates is in the realm of public and health economics. The second essay titled "Greeks Just Want to Have Fun or Do They? Fraternal Membership and College Outcomes" asks whether or not a student's decision to join a Greek organization during their undergraduate college tenure has significant impacts on collegiate outcomes, which delves into the economics of education, peer effects, and public economics. The third essay titled "A Structural Model of the U.S. Orange Juice Market: Alternative Evaluation Methods for Dumping Charges" takes a particular instance where a domestic industry has claimed that foreign producers have dumped products into the United States domestic market and econometrically tests the validity of those claims. This paper's topic is in the realm of international trade, public choice, and public economics.
