Economics 101: Introduction to Microeconomics

Professor Ananish Chaudhuri

Fall 2001

Announcements:

October 1, 2001: As requested by some students I have set up two conferences for the two sections of Principles that I teach. The two confrences are Econ101-4-f01 and Econ101-5-f01 respectively. Each folder contains the names of the students in the section (this was the request of some students) and a copy of the first problem set. I will continue to use the course website as well.

September 28, 2001: The first homework assignment is posted in the section on Homework Assignments. Scroll down below to get to it. This will be due back on Friday, October 5, 2001.

September 20, 2001: You are possibly aware that due to the fact that classes were cancelled on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the semester was extended by a day to make up for that. However given the disruption, I would like to postpone the first exam in the course by ten days to October 12, 2001. The date announced in the syllabus is October 2, 2001. I will discuss this in class tomorrow, 09/21. Please let me know if you have any questions of comments.

September 20, 2001: There is an extremely interesting article on the economic impact of the events of last week in the Business section of the New York Times today, 09/20. It is written by Alan Kruger. Check it out if you have some free time.

September 5, 2001: Just to reiterate the point once more, both my sections of Principles of Microeconomics will meet on Tuesdays and Fridays. We will not be using the alt sections at all. Alsoboth my sections are completely full, however there were about four students who wanted to get into the 1:30 class. I tried sending those students e-mail but the mails bounced back. I will try to add you in if at all possible. So please come to class on Friday if it not too inconvenient. However both those sections and the one section on Intermediate Micro that I am teaching are FULL!! I am afraid that I cannot allow any more students in there.

Here is the Syllabus for the class.

I strongly encourage all of you to take a look at Paul Krugman's Column in the New York Times as often as you can. Krugman is currently on the Economics faculty of Princeton University. He received his B.A. from Yale University in 1974, and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1977. From 1977 to 1979 he taught at Yale; then moved to MIT, where he remained on the faculty from 1979 to 1994, he then moved to Stanford from 1994 until 1996. In 1982-3, on leave from MIT, he served as chief international economist of the Council of Economic Advisers.

You can also read Professor N. Gregory Mankiw's column in Fortune Magazine. Greg Mankiw is a professor at Harvard University and the author of another very popular principles of economics textbooks.

For current business news from a variety of media sources, check out The Brave New Work World Website.

Prentice-Hall, publishers of the textbook by Case and Fair, has established a website which has a plethora of material including online quizzes and case studies and more. To access this website, Click Here. The first time you access the website, you will be asked to register and obtain a username and password. Please do so. Then as we go along in class, you can look at some relevant news reports and also take quizzes online, to assess your understanding of the material.

Below I provide some sample exams from previous semesters when I taught this course. Please bear in mind that the structure of the course is different from one semester to the the next, so is the pace of coverage. These exams are provided so that you can get a feel for the kinds of questions that I will ask you during exams. You should NOT rely exclusively on these sample exams to study for the exams for this semester. The correct answer to each question is marked with a "**" next to it.

Sample Exams from Spring 2001:

First Exam from Spring 2001 (with answers)

Second Exam from Spring 2001 (with answers)

Final Exam from Spring 2001 (with answers)

Sample Exams from Fall 1999:

First Exam from Fall 1999 (with answers).

Second Exam from Fall 1999 (with answers).

Final Exam from Fall 1999 (with answers)

Homework Assignments for Fall 2001:

Homework #1(Due Back on Friday, October 5, 2001)

Homework #2(Due Back on Friday, November 2, 2001)

Homework #3(Due back on Tuesday December 4, 2001)

Powerpoint Slides of Chapter Outlines:

These are the chapters that I intend to cover during the semester. These slides are provided with the hope that they may be helpful to you for studying for the course. You should still read the textbook. These slides are designed to complement the textbook, not to substitute it.

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