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Poslední úprava: doc. Petr Janský, M.Sc., Ph.D. (13.11.2019)
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Poslední úprava: doc. Petr Janský, M.Sc., Ph.D. (05.12.2017)
Principles of Economics I Winter Semester 2017-18, Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences This course introduces economic thinking and basic principles of microeconomics for economics students as well as for non-economists. The lectures are the same for both Principles of Economics I (PoE, JEB101) and Principles of Microeconomics (PoM, JEM163), while seminars as well as some requirements are different. Please sign up for the course and select one of the seminars in the Student Information System. The course begins with the first lecture on Tuesday 3rd October at 2 pm in room no. 109, while the first seminars are taking place during the afternoon on Wednesday 4th October. The location of all lecture and seminar rooms is the Institute of Economic Studies at Opletalova 26, Praha. This is an introductory microeconomics course with lectures and seminars for students of Czech Bachelor in Economics (mandatory, as an alternative to Ekonomie I), English Bachelor in Economics and Finance (as a mandatory course), International Economic and Political Studies (mandatory as PoM), and any other degree at Charles University with interest in economics (optional). Lectures and seminars
At Tuesday lectures, students learn about the basic principles of economics in a way that prepares them for further study of economics as well as their future professional careers. Additionally, guest lecturers from research, business and other sectors are invited to contribute to the lectures and thus enrich the course. During Wednesday seminars, students use knowledge acquired during lectures and from reading textbooks in class discussions, problem sets, games and exercises and thus deepen their understanding of economics. The seminars are focused on practicing what they already know from lectures and readings. In each week, the three seminars are taught by one of the seminar tutors. In addition, there is a special seminar PoM only for students of Principles of microeconomics (for IEPS students) and is taught by Michal Král, who also deals with any issues related to IEPS students and their additional requirements. Miroslav Palanský is coordinating the seminars and is responsible for final exams, with which other instructors will help out. Hana Moravcová is responsible for Aplia. Please do not hesitate to contact them in case you have questions related to these issues (if you email one of us, please either contact only one of us or send one email to all intended recipients rather than a number of separate emails). Requirements and assessment Students attend lectures and seminars, which are organised for their benefit. Students are thus encouraged to provide feedback during the semester so that teaching in ongoing seminars and lectures can be improved. The exams are aimed at testing the knowledge and abilities learnt during the lectures, guest lectures, seminars, and from the textbooks. Experience shows that there is a strong positive correlation between attendance at lectures and seminars and good results in exams. Students of PoE can choose between two main alternatives for final examination. Students can decide either to sit in for an exam at the end of the semester (100 % of the grade) or to combine the exam (70 %) with assignments mainly in an online Aplia system during the semester (30 %). The exam is a test that includes various questions such as problem sets and multiple choices (for which students can prepare at seminars). Aplia assignments are submitted on a weekly basis (more on Aplia and how to purchase it is at the end of this syllabus). In case Aplia would worsen the grade, only the exam’s result is taken into account. For both Aplia and the exam, the grading follows this simple rule: the total number of points received is divided by the maximum number of points that could have been received. Students of PoM choose between the exam (75 %) or a combination of the exam (50 %) and Aplia results (25 %). In addition, their requirements include an essay (25 %). The grading follows the following rules. Total values higher than 85 % correspond to grade 1 (výborně in Czech), between 70 % and 85 % to grade 2 (chvalitebně), between 60 % and 70 % to grade 3 (dobře). Additionally, it is possible for the instructors to award extra points for extraordinary activity of students during seminars (a maximum of 0.5 percentage point per session and 5 percentage points during the whole course) that count as percentage points towards the grade in addition to those outlined above. Readings The course follows the material that is present in almost identical form in either of the following two textbooks: Mankiw, N.G., Taylor, M.P.: Economics (the chapter numbers in the weekly schedule below relate to this textbook’s 3rd version) or Mankiw, N.G..: Principles of Economics. In addition to attending lectures and seminars, students are encouraged to read one of these textbooks. There are a number of copies of these textbooks available in the IES library (and some in the CERGE-EI library). The supporting web pages of this course include the webpage of the textbook, which has useful student hand-outs and other student resources. Also, there is a Czech-English dictionary specially designed for you by one graduate of the Principles course, Michal Spišiak. It includes a translation of every key word from the Principles textbook and you can access it at http://dictionary.fsv.cuni.cz. Please note that a number of other introductory economics texts provide almost equivalent service to the student as the above listed textbooks. Especially, please consider visiting the webpage of CORE with an excellent free online textbook.
Weekly schedule
Link to sign up for essays: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NVs3kUVXDy7_CCESQBkRwJSBaLd858wiq3JLMBcLI3I/edit#gid=0
For students, who decide to have Aplia assingments Aplia is a part of one of the two options for final examination and it is up to the students to decide whether they want to make use of this option. Aplia is an online assignment system that provides students with the opportunity to fulfil their course requirements gradually during the semester on a weekly basis. Students choosing the Aplia examination option pay the Aplia supplier GBP 20 for this course (around 567 CZK). This price buys you Aplia not only for this course, but also for the ensuing one – Principles of Economics II in the summer semester. Also, you can try out Aplia before paying because it offers a grace period of unlimited access to this course to October 14th. Instructions on how to register for this course in Aplia:
Last, but not least, honesty is expected from all students. |