Unit convenor and teaching staff |
Unit convenor and teaching staff
Unit Convenor
Ben Wang
E4A432
Mondays 3:00-4:00
Teaching Assistant
Mahmut Temur
TBA
TBA
Marjan Nazifi
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Credit points |
Credit points
3
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Prerequisites |
Prerequisites
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Corequisites |
Corequisites
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Co-badged status |
Co-badged status
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Unit description |
Unit description
This unit is an introductory course in macroeconomics. It focuses on the economy as a whole; the economy seen as a set of markets related to each other, rather than on the features characterising the equilibrium in an individual market, for example, the market for shoes. Topics covered include gross domestic product (GDP), savings, unemployment, inflation, money, the balance of payments, exchange rates, fiscal policy and monetary policy. At the end of the course students should be able to apply the main model used by economists to represent the economy (aggregate supply-aggregate demand), identify the forces that determine the equilibrium level of output, employment, inflation, interest rates, the exchange rate and their movements, and be able to analyse and predict the effect of shocks to supply and/or demand.
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Information about important academic dates including deadlines for withdrawing from units are available at https://www.mq.edu.au/study/calendar-of-dates
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
NOTE: You do not have to pass each assessment component. Your aggregate assessment for the unit is a weighted average of your scores in the components.
Name | Weighting | Hurdle | Due |
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Final examination | 50% | No | Final Examination Period |
Online Quizzes | 10% | No | Weeks 3-4, 6-7, 9-10, 12-13 |
Narrative Interview Assignment | 10% | No | Week 8 |
Tutorials - part 1 & 2 | 30% | No | At each tutorial |
Due: Final Examination Period
Weighting: 50%
The final examination is an individual assessment task and it consists of 2 hours writing and 10 minutes reading time. It will cover all the topics taught in the unit. It will be closed book, with no cheat sheets, and will comprise a section of multiple choice questions and a section where students will be asked to provide written answers to short-answer questions.
There will be no formula sheet provided as part of the final examination paper.
Students are only allowed to use non-programmable calculators. Calculators with text retrieval abilities and/or those with a full alphabet on the keyboard are NOT permitted.
The final examination period spans from Monday 12 November until Friday 30 November. Students who missed the final exam due to unavoidable disruptions may apply special considerations. A supplementary exam will be given upon successful application.
Due: Weeks 3-4, 6-7, 9-10, 12-13
Weighting: 10%
All students will have to complete a set of online quizzes periodically during the session. In weeks 3, 6, 9 and 12, you must complete a quiz available online on iLearn. The quizzes will become available on Fridays at 6pm, and will have to completed and submitted by the next Thursday at 11: 59pm- apart from these open and closing times, the quizzes are untimed. There is no option for completing this assessment after the submission closing time. No extensions will be granted. Students who have not submitted the task prior to the deadline will be awarded a mark of 0 for the task, except for cases in which an application for Special Considerations is made and approved. In this case an alternative assessment will be given. The quizzes will be automatically marked.
The questions will be multiple choice, and each student will have to answer a random selection of questions from a large test bank. Each of the quizzes will have equal weight in the assessment.
Due: Week 8
Weighting: 10%
You need to interview someone who has experienced one of the following eras or situations. Perhaps this person can be part of your family, a friend or even someone you know through work. You will then write a 600-800 word summary of the interview, possibly including some information about the person you interviewed such as their relationship to you. You do not need to provide their name. You should also provide a reflection on your experience of the situation, including links that you make between the interview and the topics covered thus far in the unit. This part should be approximately 200-250 words. Try to make your write-up relevant to what you have been learning in the unit.
Possible Topics:
• Global Financial Crisis (not in Australia)
• 2007-08 World Food Price Crisis
• 1997 Asian Financial Crisis
• Black Tuesday (October 1987)
• Early 1990s recession
• Energy crises- 2000s, 1973, 1979
• Heisei Recession
• Great Leap Forward (1958-1961)
• Great Depression (1929-1935)
• Homelessness
• Long-term unemployment
• Trading in black market goods
• Wars- WWII (1939-1945), Korean War (1950-1953), Vietnam War (1954-1975) (focus on economic implications)
• Refugees (focus on economic implications)
• Natural disaster (focus on economic implications)- e.g. Hurricane Katrina, 2004 Indian
Ocean earthquake and tsunami, 2010-11 Queensland floods
Note: if you would like to choose a topic that is not listed above, please send Mahmut, the Teaching Assistant for ECON110, an email at mahmut.temur@mq.edu.au.
A separate document on iLearn entitled Guidelines for Narrative Interview Assignment explains what you need to do in more detail.
This assignment will be discussed in tutorials in week 1, and your write-up will have to be submitted online in iLearn in Week 8 – by Friday 5 October 2017 at 11:59pm. This is a firm deadline, though if you submit your assignment later, you will suffer a penalty of 10% for every 24 hours up to a maximum of 72 hours after the deadline. Exceptions will be granted for cases in which an application for Special Considerations is made and approved.
Due: At each tutorial
Weighting: 30%
There are 2 parts to this assessment
PART 1 - MOCK RBA MEETING ASSIGNMENT (worth 25%)
PART 2 - TUTORIAL PARTICIPATION (worth 5%)
PART 1 - MOCK RBA MEETING ASSIGNMENT (worth 20 out of the 30 marks)
This is a teamwork assignment, done with the team members you will be working with in tutorials throughout the semester. Your tutor will put you in a team at the second tutorial. Contact your tutor after Week 2 if you are not in a tutorial team.
This assignment will be discussed in tutorials in week 1. At your tutorial in week 12 (beginning 29 October 2018), we will hold a mock RBA meeting. Each of you will work in a team and decide what you believe should happen to the cash rate (the interest rate the RBA sets) at the next RBA meeting. Your team should produce a video on a policy recommendation, supporting your recommendations with a brief summary of the data and economic trends that led to your recommendation. This video will be played in week 12's tutorial and must be limited to 4-5 minutes. You will also need to submit an individual report, answering to a set of questions. Details of this assessment will be made available on ilearn and will be thoroughly discussed by your tutor in your first tutorial.
By 11:59pm of the Friday of week 11 (26 October), you must submit the video and the individual report through Turnitin on iLearn. Only one person from the team needs to submit the video but all students should submit their individual reports. This is a firm deadline, fail to do so will result a penalty of 10% for every 24 hours up to a maximum of 72 hours after the deadline. Exceptions will be granted for cases in which an application for Special Considerations is made and approved.
This assessment will attract both a team and an individual mark. The team mark (out of 10 marks) will be based on your ability to work as a team and critically devise a policy suggestion. Your individual mark (out of 10 marks) will be based on your individual report. More information will be available on iLearn.
A separate document on iLearn entitled Guidelines for Mock RBA Meeting explains what you need to do in more detail.
PART 2 - TUTORIAL PARTICIPATION (worth 10 out of the 30 marks)
Tutorial participation is compulsory in this unit.
This is an individual assessment. A question sheet for each tutorial will be uploaded on iLearn on the Friday of the week before. At the start of the tutorial, you will work on the answers to the questions in the group to which you will be allocated in week 2. This will be followed by a class discussion led by your tutor. You will be expected to individually contribute to the discussions throughout the semester. Solutions to the tutorials will be posted at 5pm on the Friday of the week of the tutorial.
If you do not attend a tutorial in a week, you will be awarded a mark of 0 for that week, except for cases in which an application for Special Consideration is made and approved.
CLASSES
• This unit provides 3 hours face-to-face teaching per week consisting of 1 x 2 hour lecture and 1 x 1 hour tutorial
• The timetable for lectures and tutorials can be found on the University web site at: http://www.timetables.mq.edu.au
LECTURES (1 stream only) - see http://www.timetables.mq.edu.au for any changes to the information below.
DAY AND TIME | VENUE | LECTURERS |
Monday 10-12am | Macquarie Theatre | Dr Ben Wang |
Lecture slides will be available on the unit web page at http://ilearn.mq.edu.au, and (barring technical hitches, which often occur) videos of the Friday lectures will be available on Echo. During the semester, unforeseen circumstances may require the cancellation of a lecture and/or tutorial. Any changes will be announced as far as possible in advance both in lectures and on the unit website. Students are strongly advised that their learning is significantly enhanced by their regular attendance. It is assumed that students will attend all lectures and tutorials. Students who miss lectures put themselves at a significant disadvantage for several reasons, including: (i) Not all the material in the text is covered in the unit, and not all the material in the unit is covered in the text. In some places the text deals with issues in greater depth than is necessary for the unit, and in other places it doesn’t go far enough. The lectures contain key unit material taught at the level required for the assessment tasks, and are your guide to the unit content. The tutorials will demonstrate the way questions in macroeconomics are approached. (ii) The lectures and tutorials will include significant guidance about the style and content of the final exam and recommendations about study technique. (iii) It is difficult (and often impossible) for staff to provide meaningful assistance to students outside class times on topics for which they did not attend the relevant lectures and tutorials.
Textbook
The textbook for this course is:
Bernanke B.S., Olekalns, N. and H. R. Frank (2014), Principles of Macroeconomics, (4th edition) McGraw-Hill International Book Co., Sydney.
It is feasible to use earlier editions of the textbook (second and third) for most of the topics covered in the course. However there are some changes in the 4th edition from earlier editions, related to Chapters 9 and 10 of the current edition. While the new material will be covered in lectures and tutorials, it may be helpful to have access to the 4th edition for this material.
Supplementary Support Material
The publishers provide a range of support material for the textbook, including an e-Book and Smartbook/Connect.
While this electronic support material may provide very useful additional assistance to your study of the subject matter, the support material is not required reading. Students must make their own judgement as to whether accessing and using the support material is worthwhile. The examinable content of the textbook is defined by the Lecture Schedule and the Tutorial Program.
We strongly recommend that you have your own access to the textbook and the supplementary material.
Buying the Textbook and Supplementary Materials
You should be able to buy a hardcopy of the textbook at a bookshop, and this will typically cost new between $110-$130 (this is an indicative price). With this purchase, you should get access to the e-Book and Smartbook/Connect.
Alternatively, you should be able to buy the e-Book with Smartbook/Connect for $70 (this is an indicative price).
Additional Readings
For some topics students will be required to read material in addition to the textbook. All additional readings will be posted on iLearn.
Week |
Topic |
Textbook Chapters |
Week 1 beginning 30 July 2018 |
Measures of macroeconomic performance: output and prices |
Chapter 1 |
Week 2 beginning 6 August 2018 |
Saving, wealth and the real interest rate |
Chapter 2 |
Week 3 beginning 13 August 2018 |
Unemployment and the labour market |
Chapter 3 |
Week 4 beginning 20 August 2018 |
Business cycles - a model of output determination - the AE Model |
Chapters 4 & 5 |
Week 5 beginning 27 August 2018 |
Short run equilibrium in the AE model |
Chapter 5 |
Week 6 beginning 3 September 2018 |
Fiscal policy |
Chapter 6 |
Week 7 beginning 10 September 2018 |
Financial system, money, prices & the RBA |
Chapter 7 |
Week 8 beginning 2 October 2018 |
Monetary policy and the RBA |
Chapter 8 |
Week 9 beginning 8 October 2018 |
A model of output & inflation - the AD-AS model |
Chapter 9 |
Week 10 beginning 15 October 2018 |
Macroeconomic policy; open economy: exchange rates |
Chapters 10 & 15 |
Week 11 beginning 22 October 2018 |
Open economy: capital flows |
Chapter 16 |
Week 12 beginning 29 October 2018 |
The long run - economic growth |
Chapters 11 & 12 |
Week 13 beginning 5 November 2018 |
Review lecture - what have we learnt |
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