ECO 2030 and 2050: Home

COURSE OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE:

To provide the students with an introduction to the major topical areas of macroeconomics, their evolution, and practical application.  The course is designed to be helpful to prospective business managers by providing a framework for future studies in economics.  Students must demonstrate knowledge of the material through practical application in the following ways:

• Be able to use the demand and supply graph to predict equilibrium price and quantity, and their changes over time.
• Discuss the basic institutions of a free-market system.
• Explain the concept of GDP, how it is calculated, and whether it can be used as a measure of social well-being.
• Define the business cycle and describe its related patterns in GDP, unemployment, and inflation.
• Explain how unemployment is measured, debates about this measurement, and major types of unemployment and their causes. Be able to find recent unemployment statistics.
• Be able to explain how we measure inflation, debates about this measurement, and inflation’s causes. Be able to find recent inflation figures.
• Be able to identify and define basic macro theories of consumption and investment and their predictions.
• Be able to describe the concept of an aggregate demand and supply graph.
• Debate whether the macro-economy can self-correct from business-cycle problems.
• Describe fiscal policy and debate its usefulness. Explain budget deficits and surpluses, and the public debt.
• Describe the Federal Reserve System and explain how and why the Fed conducts expansionary and contractionary policy.
• Describe the basic concepts of world trade, trade barriers, balance-of-payments, and exchange rates.