This lesson teaches students about the importance of entrepreneurship and small businesses in our society. First, use the briefing (found in Task 1) to teach students about this concept. Then, lead the class in discussion. Finally, ask students to research and write about the topic. This lesson is a part of the Business and Marketing Essentials Course Guide. To download it, visit mbastatesconnection.mbaresearch.org and select "Course Guides" under "Curriculum and Instruction."

Based on a fable about government debt, students identify the relevance of crowding out, monetizing a debt, external debt, and stimulus spending.

Spreadsheets Across Curriculum module. Students build spreadsheets to examine the price of gasoline, 1978-2005. QL: using ratios and proportions to make comparisons.

This is a course in industrial organization, the study of firms in markets. Industrial organization focuses on firm behavior in imperfectly competitive markets, which appear to be far more common than the perfectly competitive markets that were the focus of your basic microeconomics course. This field analyzes the acquisition and use of market power firms, strategic interactions among firms, and the role of government competition policy. We will approach this subject from both theoretical and applied perspectives.

Economics teacher Jacob Clifford reviews inflation and the Consumer Price Index in this informational, engaging video. He explains the Consumer Price Index formula and provides several practice problems for students to try as they watch. For more resources, visit https://mbastatesconnection.mbaresearch.org/ and select the Bookmarks section.

This seminar examines efforts in developing and advanced nations and regions to create, finance, and regulate infrastructure and energy technologies from a variety of methodological and disciplinary perspectives. It is conducted with intensive in-class discussions and debates.

This activity provides a classroom impact evaluation exercise that serves as an introduction to the primary investigative tool of current Development economics.

In this teaching exercise students will extend the conventional economic framework for analyzing the causes and consequences of unemployment to incorporate insight from psychologists and sociologists. Thus, the exercise adopts the hierarchical approach to interdisciplinary learning. Students will explore theories from psychologists and sociologists that link joblessness to emotional well-being and discover how economists then connect the psychological status of a nation's workforce to their productivity. These linkages are then built into standard economic models for analyzing aggregate output and prices (i.e., aggregate supply aggregate demand) and for employment determination (i.e., marginal productivity theory of labor) to obtain a richer more complete understanding of the impact of a recession. The analysis reveals that recessions are expected to be deeper and of greater duration when an interdisciplinary analysis is conducted. Moreover, alternative (i.e., non-neoclassical) paradigms within the discipline of economics for explaining joblessness are briefly described and brought into the discussion. Finally, policy options for eliminating a recession are re-considered given the interdisciplinary framework offered in this exercise.

Survey of modern macroeconomics at a fairly advanced level. Topics include neoclassical and new growth theory, consumption and saving behavior, investment, and unemployment. Use of the dynamic programming techniques. Assignments include problem sets and written discussions of macroeconomic events. Recommended for students planning to apply to graduate school in economics. Credit not given for both 14.05 and 14.06.

Uses the tools of macroeconomics to study three macroeconomic policy problems in depth. Possible topics include long-run economic growth, the macroeconomics of the transition to a modern capitalist society, federal government surpluses and deficits, Social Security, the distribution of earnings and income, and the Great Depression. Requires a 20-page paper on a subject related to one of the topics considered in the class. This subject considers three topics of macroeconomics that are alive and controversial for policy today. The topics are: economic growth - the roles of capital accumulation, increased education, and technological progress in determining economic growth; savings - the effect of government and private debt on economic growth; and exchange-rate regimes - their role in the Great Depression and today.

This course is designed to extend the student's knowledge of the basic microeconomic principles that will provide the foundation for their future work in economics and give them insight into how economic models can help us think about important real world phenomena. Topics include supply and demand interaction, utility maximization, profit maximization, elasticity, perfect competition, monopoly power, imperfect competition, and game theory. Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to: Explain the standard theory in microeconomics at an intermediate level; Explain and use the basic tools of microeconomic theory, and apply them to help address problems in public policy; Analyze the role of markets in allocating scarce resources; Explain both competitive markets, for which basic models of supply and demand are most appropriate, and markets in which agents act strategically, for which game theory is the more appropriate tool; Synthesize the impact of government intervention in the market; Develop quantitative skills in doing economic cost and consumer analysis using calculus; Compare and contrast arguments concerning business and politics, and make good conjectures regarding the possible solutions; Analyze the economic behavior of individuals and firms, and explore how they respond to changes in the opportunities and constraints that they face and how they interact in markets; Apply basic tools that are used in many fields of economics, including household economics, labor economics, production theory, international economics, natural resource economics, public finance, and capital markets. (Economics 201)

This course covers, with a focus on both theory and empirics, advanced topics in international trade (as well as inter-regional trade and economic geography). It includes the study of positive issues, such as: Why do countries trade? What goods do countries trade? What are the implications of openness for the location of production, industries, occupations, and innovative activity? And, what impedes trade and why do some countries deliberately erect policy impediments to trade? The course also concerns normative issues, such as: Is trade openness beneficial to a representative agent? And, Are there winners and losers from trade and if so, can we identify them? Throughout, these issues are approached in neoclassical settings as well as those with market failures, at the industry-level as well as the firm-level, and in the presence of both mobile and immobile factors (e.g., foreign direct investment (FDI), offshoring of tasks, multinational firms and immigration).

International Finance Theory and Policy is built on Steve Suranovic’s belief that to understand the international economy, students need to learn how economic models are applied to real world problems. It is true what they say, that ”economists do it with models.“ That’s because economic models provide insights about the world that are simply not obtainable solely by discussion of the issues.

International Finance Theory and Policy develops a unified model of the international macroeconomy. The text provides detailed descriptions of major macroeconomic variables, covers the interest rate parity and purchasing power parity theories of exchange rate determination, takes an exhaustive look at the pros and cons of trade imbalances and presents the well-known AA-DD model to explore the effects of fiscal and monetary policy under both fixed and flexible exchange rates.

The models are developed, not by employing advanced mathematics, but rather by walking students through a detailed description of how a model’s assumptions influence its conclusions. But more importantly, each model and theory is connected to real world policy issues.

The Finance Text has the following unique features: 1). Begins with an historical overview of the international macroeconomy to provide context for the theory. 2). Concludes with a detailed discussion of the pros and cons of fixed and floating exchange rate systems. 3. Provides an extensive look at the issue of trade imbalances. Readers learn techniques to evaluate whether a country's trade deficit (or surplus) is dangerous, beneficial, or benign. 4). Explains how purchasing power parity is used to make cross country income comparisons. 5). Offers clear detailed explanations of the AA-DD model. 6). Applies the AA-DD model to understand the effects of monetary and fiscal policy on GDP, the exchange rate, and the trade balance.

International Finance: Theory and Policy by Steve Suranovic is intended for a one-semester course in International Finance.

This course examines the interconnections of international politics and climate change. Beginning with an analysis of the strategic and environmental legacies of the 20th Century, it explores the politicization of the natural environment, the role of science in this process, and the gradual shifts in political concerns to incorporate "nature". Two general thrusts of climate-politics connections are pursued, namely those related to (a) conflict - focusing on threats to security due to environmental dislocations and (b) cooperation - focusing on the politics of international treaties that have contributed to emergent processes for global accord in response to evidence of climate change. The course concludes by addressing the question of: "What Next?

This classroom activity serves as an intuitive introduction to backward induction solutions in an upper level undergraduate game theory course.

This book describes how Earth's climate is changing, how it has been changing in the recent geological past and how it may change in the future. It covers the physical sciences that build the foundations of our current understanding of global climate change such as radiation, Earth's energy balance, the greenhouse effect and the carbon cycle. Both natural and human causes for climate change are discussed. Impacts of climate change on natural and human systems are summarized. Ethical and economical aspects of human-caused climate change and solutions are presented.

This introductory survey course is intended to develop an understanding of key issues and dilemmas of planning in non-Western countries. The issues covered by the course include state intervention, governance, law and institutions in development, privatization, participatory planning, decentralization, poverty, urban-rural linkages, corruption and civil service reform, trade and outsourcing and labor standards, post-conflict development and the role of aid in development.

" This course will provide a solid foundation in probability and statistics for economists and other social scientists. We will emphasize topics needed for further study of econometrics and provide basic preparation for 14.32. Topics include elements of probability theory, sampling theory, statistical estimation, and hypothesis testing."

Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum module. Students use the Compound Interest Equation and an annuity equation to calculate the growth of investments over time.