Poslední úprava: doc. Petr Janský, M.Sc., Ph.D. (23.09.2019)
Principles of Economics I
Winter Semester 2019-20, Charles University,
This course introduces economic thinking and basic principles of microeconomics to both economics and non-economics students.
Principles of Economics I (JEB101) is an introductory economics course with lectures and seminars for students of Bachelor in Economics (mandatory, as an alternative to Ekonomie I), Bachelor in Economics and Finance (as a mandatory course), Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE, as a mandatory course), International Economic and Political Studies (IEPS, mandatory as Principles of microeconomics, JEM163), and students of any other degree at Charles University with interest in economics.
Please sign up for the course and select one of the seminars in the Student Information System (SIS). The course begins with the first lecture on Tuesday 1st October at 2 pm in room no. 109, while the first seminars are taking place later that week. The location of all lecture and seminar rooms is the Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences at Opletalova 26, Praha.
Lectures and seminars
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Day
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Time
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Room
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Lecture
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Tuesday
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14:00-15:20
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109
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Seminar 1
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Tuesday
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15:30-16:50
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109
|
|
Seminar 2
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Tuesday
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18:30-19:50
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105
|
|
Seminar 3
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Wednesday
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15:30-16:50
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206
|
|
Seminar 4 (including IEPS students)
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Wednesday
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17:00-18:20
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206
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Seminar 5 (including PPE students)
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Wednesday
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18:30-19:50
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206
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At the 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 occasionally invited to contribute to the lectures and thus enrich the course. The main lecturer of the course is Petr Janský (web, email).
During the 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. Students sing up for one of the five seminars that they attend throughout the semester with the fourth seminar being for IEPS students in particular and the fifth seminar being for PPE students in particular. In each week, all five seminars are taught by one of the seminar tutors.
There are five teaching assistants for this course: Shahriyar Aliyev (email, web), Sarah Godar (email, web), Natalia Li (email, web), Tereza Palanská (email, web), and Marek Šedivý (email, web).
Sarah Godar is responsible for MindTap online assignments. Marek Šedivý is the main organiser of final exams, with which other instructors will help out. Natalia Li is responsible for grading the essays of IEPS students. Tereza Palanská is coordinating the seminars. Please do not hesitate to contact them in case you have questions related to these issues (by the way, if you email one of the teachers, please either contact only one of them 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 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 MindTap 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). To pass the course, students are required to score at least 50 % from the exam. MindTap assignments are submitted on a weekly basis (more on MindTap and how to purchase it is at the end of this syllabus). In case MindTap would worsen the grade, only the exam’s result is taken into account. For both MindTap 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.
IEPS students share the lectures with other students, but they should primarily attend the fourth seminar on Wednesday and they have an additional requirement in the form of an essay. Therefore, IEPS students choose between the exam (75 %) or a combination of the exam (50 %) and MindTap results (25 %). In addition, their requirements include an essay (25 %).
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. Furthermore, if students agree with the seminar tutor, they can prepare a presentation for up to 5 extra points.
The grading follows these rules. Students’ total values correspond to the grades A-F according to the following schedule of intervals: A: [100-90); B: [90-80); C: [80-70); D: [70-60); E: [60-50); F (Fail): 50 and less.
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
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Week (Winter)
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Lecture (2019)
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Themes
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Book chapters
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1
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1st October
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Ten Principles of Economics; Thinking Like an Economist
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1 + 2
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2
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8th October
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The Market Forces of Supply and Demand; Elasticity and Its Application; Supply, Demand and Government Policies
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4 + 5 + 6
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3
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15th October
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Consumers, Producers, and the Efficiency of Markets; The Costs of Taxation; The Design of the Tax System
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7 + 8 + 12
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4
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22nd October
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Interdependence and the Gains from Trade; International Trade
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3 + 9
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|
5
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29th October
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The Theory of Consumer Choice
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21
|
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6
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5th November
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Externalities; Public Goods and Common Resources
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10 + 11
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7
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12th November
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The Costs of Production; Firms in Competitive Markets
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13 + 14
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8
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19th November
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Monopoly
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15
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9
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26th November
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Oligopoly; Monopolistic Competition
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16 + 17
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10
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3rd December
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The Markets for the Factors of Production; Earnings and Discrimination
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18 + 19
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11
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10th December
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Income Inequality and Poverty
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20
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12
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17th December
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Frontiers of Microeconomics
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22
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For students, who decide to have MindTap assingments
MindTap 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. MindTap 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 MindTap examination option pay the MindTap supplier GBP 20 plus value added tax for this course (around 772 CZK) if you use the discount code provided below. This price buys you MindTap not only for this course, but also for the ensuing one – Principles of Economics II in the summer semester. Also, you can try out MindTap before paying because it offers a grace period of unlimited access to this course to October 15th.
Instructions on how to register for this course in MindTap:
- Go to https://login.cengagebrain.com/course/MTPP3XFNX590 and create a new account.
- Fill in and then confirm your personal information, accept email confirmation and pay now or later.
- Login at MindTap to your course and start with your assignments!
- When making a purchase you will need to enter this discount code 891MAN20 on the payment screen where you enter your credit card details.
