Syllabus for ECON 505 Economics for Administrative Management

Prerequisite: Application for admission to the M.A. in Administrative Management or M.S. in Management Information Systems degree programs.

Dates: Term 3: Jan 15 to Mar 18, 2001. Saturday/Sunday, every other weekend. 9am to 4pm.

Instructor: Gordon Leitch. I received my M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Tulane University. An extract from my dissertation "Profitability and the Evaluation of Economic Forecasts" was published in American Economic Review. Prior to joining the European Division in 1996 I taught at UMUC's program at Far Eastern State University in Vladivostok, Russia. I have also taught economics, finance, management and statistics courses at Tulane University, Southeastern Louisiana University, Loyola University (New Orleans), and the University of Portland.

Text: McConnell & Brue, Economics, 14th ed. McGraw-Hill, 2000.

useful: keeping up with business, political, & economic news (Wall St. Journal, International Herald Tribune, USA Today, Stars & Stripes. Also Time, Newsweek, US News, Forbes, Business Week)

Course Description: 3 semester hours credit for Master's programs economics prerequisites. Not open to students who have already satisfied the economics prerequisites.

Survey of macro and micro economic concepts relative to administrative management. Introduces behavior of consumer and producer in the marketplace, price determination, macroeconomic problems of income, employment, price stability, tools of monetary and fiscal policy. Impact of different market structures upon economic activity.

Course Objectives: this course enables students to understand the basic techniques and concepts of economics. Students will have a better comprehension about how economists view different parts of the economy, and the strengths and weaknesses of the economist's approach. Students will gain the ability to view situations from an economist's perspective.

Grading: The best way to learn economics is to do economics. Some of the chapter problems will be gone over in class so students can see how problems are solved and also do them on their own. Otherwise, in general, expect to see the end-of-chapter keywords, questions, and problems covered in class. Any quizzes are at the start of class and are 1/2 hour long.

The midterm exam, final exam and any quizzes are weighted to determine the overall course grade:

The exams can include a short written answer section (2-3 questions). Exams & quizzes will include problems that can be done using a calculator, though the emphasis is not on number-crunching but on understanding concepts, using them, & applying them. Other questions require written answers describing, interpreting, and explaining what some set of information or results indicate. Some questions may be multiple choice, fill-in-blank, or matching. Others involve graphical analysis.

Written answers and work (including the term report) are evaluated on the basis of clarity, supporting evidence, organization, thoroughness, understanding of the subject matter, and how well the question is answered in a relative sense.

The term report should be word-processed or typed, if possible (you may submit it on disk if you wish, I will return it to you. The term report consists of doing some research in answer to a question or topic in economics selected by the instructor, and writing a 3-6 page paper answering the question or issue. You can use library reference materials, current news items, and other sources in gathering material for your paper. The paper should not take more than a free weekend to complete. This includes gathering the data, making sense of it, and writing about what you find out. Include a brief list of references & sources used (ie, a bibliography -- does not count as part of minimum pages -- neither does a cover sheet, title page, graphs, appendix, or endnotes). Note: grammar and spelling influence the overall impression of the paper.

Some Topics:

1. Changes in Tax Rates, Taxes Collected & Total Government Spending 1975-1998. (is there any connection?)
2. Performance of an Economist's Economic Forecasts over a five year period. (how well did this person do?)
3. Performance of a Stock Analyst's Picks over a 2-3 year period. (how well did this person do?)
4. Presidents, Political Parties & the Economy: Any Connection? (look at elections, which party is in power in different branches of government, & the level of economy activity)
5. Federal Reserve Interest Policy and the Short-term Credit Markets: Leader or Follower? (does he Fed set an interest rate the market later moves to, or does the Fed change its target rates to match market conditions?)

The scale used is: A (90-100%), B(80-89%), C(70-79%), F below 60%.

Because of time limits we will not cover every part of the book so students are expected to read assigned pages beyond what is gone over in class. Besides the pages emphasized in class for each chapter, you should also review the end-of-chapter terms, questions and problems. The course is scheduled so the first half is MICRO & the second half is primarily MACRO.

1 nature & method of economics

2 economizing problem (scarcity & responses to it)

3 demand & supply

4 pure capitalism

5 mixed economy (private & public sectors)

20 demand, supply & elasticity

21 consumer behavior, utility & indifference curves

22 costs of production

23 models of firm I: perfect competition

25 models of firm III: monopolistic competition

26 models of firm IV: oligopoly

30 government & market failure

Review (optional)

7 national output (GNP, GDP)

8 unemployment & inflation

9 aggregate expenditures model

11 aggregate supply & demand

12 fiscal policy

13 money & banking

15 federal reserve & monetary policy

16 alternative views on macro theory & policy

17 inflation & unemployment

Review (optional)

Final exam