ECON105-09S2 (C) Semester Two 2009

Introduction to Macroeconomics

18 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 13 July 2009
End Date: Sunday, 15 November 2009
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 24 July 2009
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 9 October 2009

Description

Macroeconomic variables and their measurement. Aggregate supply and aggregate demand. Exchange rate policy. Monetary policy. Fiscal policy. Labour policy.

ECON105 will challenge your views of how you see the world.  You will read the newspaper, watch the news and listen to economic and political commentators in a different way than you used to.  Maybe you will even read the newspaper, watch the news and listen to economic and political commentators for the very first time because you have discovered there is some interesting stuff there.

ECON105 will help shed light on some important real-world questions.  Questions like:
• What is so bad about inflation?
• Why do we care what the Governor of the Reserve Bank says?
• Which is better – a high or low exchange rate?
• What does the government do and what should it be doing?
• Do tax cuts only benefit the rich and, if so, is that fair?
• What makes for a good taxation system?
• Why is economic growth so important or is it?
• Is society becoming more or less equal and does it matter?
• What is the best way to help the world’s poorest?

To put these questions into some context we will also spend a bit of time looking at what the NZ economy looks like – where it has come from; the ideas that have influenced our economic history; our growth and inflation record compared to other countries; and recent changes and important pieces of legislation.

ECON105 serves as a pre-requisite for ECON201 (Intermediate Macroeconomics) which is a compulsory subject for students majoring in economics.

Restrictions

ECON101

Timetable Note

There is one tutorial per week in addition to lectures.

Note:  not all tutorial slots will necessarily be offered.  Students who are fully enrolled in the course will get access to the online self enrolment system that the Department of Economics uses.  Students will then be able to select from the offered time slots.

Course Coordinator

Stephen Hickson

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
Assignment 10%
Online multi-choice tests 10%
Final Exam 60%
Term Test 20%

Textbooks / Resources

Required Texts

ECON105 Course Reader for the current year ;

Mankiw, N. Gregory. , Bandyopadhyay, Debasis., Wooding, Paul; Principles of macroeconomics in New Zealand ; Thomson Learning, 2006.

The text must be purchased as a bundle with the ECON104 text, Mankiw, N.G. (2007), Principles of Microeconomics (4th ed.).  USA:  Thomson South-Western

Course links

Library portal
WebCT

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $677.00

International fee $2,850.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Department of Economics and Finance .

All ECON105 Occurrences