Course Syllabus

A link to the course syllabus is here:

ECO 202_Gianneschi_Syllabus FA20.docx

 

Course Description:

Focuses on the study of individual decision making, emphasizing households, business firms and industry analysis. Explores market models, including competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition and oligopoly. Examines market failure and related efficiency criteria for government intervention. Explores public policy, including labor market issues, poverty and the environment. This is a statewide Guaranteed Transfer course in the GT-SS1 category.

Student Learning Outcomes:

The Colorado Commission on Higher Education has approved ECO-202 for inclusion in the Guaranteed Transfer (GT) Pathways program in the GT-SS1 category. For transferring students, successful completion with a minimum C- grade guarantees transfer and application of credit in this GT Pathways category. For more information on the GT Pathways program, go to https://highered.colorado.gov/academics/transfers/gtpathways/curriculum.html.

 

GT-SS1: SOCIAL & BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES: ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL SYSTEMS CONTENT CRITERIA

  1. Demonstrate knowledge of economic or political systems
  2. Use the social sciences to analyze and interpret issues.
  3. Explain diverse perspectives and groups.

 

GT-SS1 COMPETENCIES & STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
Competency- Critical Thinking:

Students should be able to:

  1. Explain an Issue (required for GT-SS1)
    1. Use information to describe a problem or issue and/or articulate a question related to the topic.
  2. Utilize Context (required for GT-SS1)
    1. Evaluate the relevance of context when presenting a position.
    2. Identify assumptions.
    3. Analyze one’s own and others’ assumptions.
  3. Understand Implications and Make Conclusions
    1. Establish a conclusion that is tied to the range of information presented.
    2. Reflect on implications and consequences of stated conclusion.

Competency- Civic Engagement:

Students should be able to:

  1. Civic Knowledge (required for GT-SS1)
    1. Connect disciplinary knowledge to civic engagement through one’s own participation in civic life, politics, and/or government.
  • Standard Competencies- Course Learning Outcomes:

Students should be able to:

  1. Predict market outcomes using the supply and demand model
  2. Explain specialization patterns
  3. Analyze elasticity concepts
  4. Formulate choices using marginal reasoning
  5. Examine resource market performance
  6. Compare implicit and explicit production costs
  7. Contrast different market structures
  8. Evaluate microeconomic public policy issues

Course Content:

  1. Fundamentals of Economic Thinking
    1. Scarcity
    2. Opportunity Costs
    3. Production Possibilities
    4. Marginal Analysis
    5. Rational Behavior
    6. Positive v. Normative Distinction
  2. How Markets Operate
    1. Definition of a market
    2. Factors of production
    3. Supply and demand
    4. Price mechanism
    5. Producer and consumer surplus
    6. Price controls
  3. Elasticity
  4. Consumer demand
  5. Production and cost in the firm
    1. Introduction to the production function
    2. Marginal and average product
    3. Law of diminishing returns
    4. Explicit and implicit cost
    5. Accounting profit v. economic profit
    6. Total cost, average cost and marginal cost in short-run
    7. Short-run production decisions
    8. Long run average cost curve
    9. Economies and diseconomies of scale
  6. Market structures
    1. Perfect competition
    2. Monopoly
    3. Monopolistic competition
    4. Oligopoly
  7. Introduction to factor markets
  8. Market failure and public policy
  9. Specialization and gains from trade

Textbook:

Principles of Microeconomics from OpenStax, ISBN 1-947172-29-8

You have several options to obtain this book:

You can use whichever formats you want. Web view is recommended -- the responsive design works seamlessly on any device.

Important Notes:

  • All first week assignments need to be completed and submitted by the due date to avoid possibly being dropped from the class.
  • Any student needing accommodations should inform the instructor. Students with disabilities who may need accommodations for this class are encouraged to notify the instructor and contact the Disability Services at CMC (https://coloradomtn.edu/apply-get-started/disability-services/) early in the term so that reasonable accommodations may be implemented as soon as possible. All information will remain confidential.
  • Academic dishonesty and plagiarism will result in a failing grade on the assignment. Using someone else's ideas or phrasing and representing those ideas or phrasing as our own, either on purpose or through carelessness, is a serious offense known as plagiarism. "Ideas or phrasing" includes written or spoken material, from whole papers and paragraphs to sentences, and, indeed, phrases but it also includes statistics, lab results, art work, etc.