Monday, December 1, 2014

Friday, November 7, 2014

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Homework and Unit materials

Please watch and take notes over the video.  Additionally, I've included the outline - divided up into two parts and a problem set that will be due on test day.

Video:  Due Monday
Monopoly intro

Outline:  Parts 1 and 2
Part 1 - Monopoly
Part 2 - Mon Comp and Oligopoly

Problem Set
Problem Set




Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Homework due Tuesday 10/7

Students,

Please watch and take notes over the rest of the video.  Start on minute 25 and continue to its completion.  Use the outline to help take notes.  We will have a quiz in class on Tuesday.


Video
Production costs - Remember - Start on minute 25.




Sunday, September 28, 2014

Production Costs


Students,
Below is the outline for the entire unit and the video homework.  Remember, the homework is to watch and take notes over the first 24:40 minutes of the video.  Again...only the first twenty-four minutes and 40 seconds of the video will be assigned.

Enjoy


Unit 3 Outline

Production Costs Video (only the first 24:40 minutes)




Thursday, September 18, 2014

Ashoka's Catapult Program

Students,

Please view this great opportunity to network and collaborate between like-minded students from around the country.  The deadline for this experience is the 21st, so act quickly.


Ashoka Overview







Thursday, September 11, 2014

Elasticity Homework

Read 356 - 363

Optional Video
***the first 6 minutes of the video is an overview of the reading***
Stop at 6:20




Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Homework due Thursday

Please watch the video from minute 20:00 - 34:00.  There will be a quiz in class.

Tax video


Friday, September 5, 2014

Message to Seniors

Seniors,

There is no longer a requirement to view the video.  The in-class review took longer than expected.

Monday, August 11, 2014

Thursday, August 7, 2014

1st Homework Assignment

Scanned copy reading


Reading Quiz

 

**the answer to question #5 was entered incorrectly, so the correct answer will initially show as incorrect.  I will make the adjustment on each persons score manually. **

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Homework Due Friday

Watch and take notes over the video below.  There will be a quiz in class.

Tax Video


Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Greg Mankiw on Changes in Income

Monday, December 16, 2013

On Measuring Changes in Income

To divert attention from the disastrous rollout of his health reform, President Obama has decided to change the national conversation to discuss increasing inequality.  This phenomenon is not new--the trend started about four decades ago--but it is real and important.  In case you are a new reader of this blog, you can find my personal views on the matter in this paper.

This national conversation has generated renewed attention to the highly influential Piketty-Saez data.  It is worth pointing out, therefore, some limitations of these data, which have been stressed by Cornell economist Richard Burkhauser: The data are on tax units rather than households, they do not include many government transfer payments, they are pre-tax rather than post-tax, they do not adjust for changes in household size, and they do not include nontaxable compensation such as employer-provided health insurance.

Does this matter?  Yes!  Here are some numbers from the Burkhauser paper:

1. From 1979 to 2007, median real income as measured by pre-tax, pre-transfer cash income of tax units rose by only 3.2 percent.  That is a paltry amount for such a long period.  You might conclude that middle class incomes have been stagnant. But wait.

2. Households are more important than tax units.  Two married people are one tax unit, whereas a couple shacked up are two tax units.  We would not want to treat the movement from marriage to shacking up as a drop in income.  If we look at households rather than tax units, that meager 3.2 percent rises to a bit more respectable 12.5 percent.

3. Now consider government transfer payments. If we add those in, that 12.5 percent number becomes an even better 15.2 percent.

4. What about taxes? The middle class received some tax cuts during that period.  Factoring taxes in, the 15.2 percent figure rises to 20.2 percent.

5. But not all households are the same size, and the size of households has fallen over time. Adjusting for household size increases that 20.2 percent to 29.3 percent.

6. There is still one thing left: employer-provided health insurance, an important fringe benefit that has grown in importance. Adding an estimate of that into income raises the 29.3 percent figure to 36.7 percent.

So, during this period, has the middle class experienced stagnant real income (a mere 3.2 percent increase) or significant gains (a 36.7 percent increase)?  It depends on which measure of income you look at.  It seems clear to me that the latter measure is more relevant, but the former measure of income often gets more attention than it deserves.

Take this as a cautionary tale.  When people talk about changes in income over time, make sure you know what measure of income they are citing.