Help For Your Introductory Economics Course

Week 2 is when the pace begins to pick up for this course.  Fortunately, there are a lot of resources available to help out and get you started! For assistance with Milestone One: Milestone One Tips on the Introduction Video Milestone One Tips on the History & Overview Video Microeconomics of Expedia Introduction Video Expedia History and Overview video Milestone One Sample Paper (Expedia) Milestone One Tips and Examples Final Project Guidelines and Rubric Listen to historical webinar recordings on the ECO YouTube Channel SNHU writing center For additional help with APA formatting: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ Additional Library resource databases containing company information, background and history, financial statements, SEC reports, SWOT analyses, scholarly journal, trade publication, magazine, and newspaper articles (including the Wall Street Journal), and market reports, can be found on the Library’s Company Information research guide: http://libguid...

One of the critical elements covered in the material this week is to analyze information and data related to the demand and supply for your firm’s product(s) to support your recommendation for the firm’s actions . You will include a graphical representation of the data and information used in your analysis . In a previous post I discussed the different aspects of demand that you could cover in your paper. You’ll want to think in terms of the factors mentioned that can impact demand for your firm (income, prices of related goods, tastes, population, demographics, and expected future prices) and make recommendations to the firm based on what you know from that research. This post will focus on how to analyze supply in this post since we haven’t covered that in detail yet and provide some ideas of concepts related to supply that could be applied to your firm. You don’t need to discuss everything I cover in this post; this is just to provide some ideas to help you get started on your rese...

One of the critical elements covered in the material this week is to evaluate the trends in demand over time and explain their impact on the industry and on the firm . But how do you evaluate the trends in demand over time and explain their impact on the industry and the firm? Here are some ideas of concepts that could be applied to your firm to help you evaluate the trends in demand. You don’t need to discuss everything I cover in this post; this is just to provide some ideas to help you get started on your research! Market demand is the demand by all the consumers of a given good or service. Find out who your customers are and provide detail on them. Use annual sales data to find out how much of the product is purchased. You should have received the Supply and Demand Help Excel Spreadsheet via email that will help you walk through the process of gathering and analyzing data. The main question to ask yourself as you analyze the data is: how has the annual sales data changed over time?...

This course was recently redesigned, but there used to be a discussion board topic each week in ECO-201. I thought some of you might benefit from seeing the discussion board topic that was previously used in this module. Below is the discussion board topic for week 2, which is followed up with an explanation. How often are you able to buy a ticket to the Super Bowl at face value? Consider the prices you would pay online or through a ticket scalper. How can the laws of supply and demand be used to explain this situation? How is the market for Super Bowl tickets different than other goods and services we purchase? What role do ticket scalpers play in this process? First let’s quickly define the following terms: Law of supply : The rule that, holding all else constant, increases in the price cause increases in the quantity supplied, and decreases in price cause decreases in the quantity supplied. Law of demand : The rule that, holding everything else constant, when the price of a product ...

Assume the world market for bananas is competitive and that the marginal cost of producing a case of bananas is $12.50 and the marginal benefit is $15. If one more case of bananas is produced and consumed, how will the economic surplus change? To answer this question, let’s first discuss what we mean by economic surplus. Economic surplus is the sum of consumer surplus and producer surplus. Consumer surplus is the difference between the highest price a consumer is willing to pay for a good or service and the actual price the consumer pays. In other words, consumer surplus measures the benefit to consumers. Producer surplus is the difference between the lowest price a firm would be willing to accept for a good or service and the price it actually receives. This means that producer surplus measures the benefit to producers from participating in a market (in this case, the market for bananas). This question also mentions a few other terms we need to understand. The marginal benefit is the ...

Which of the following would cause an increase in the demand for apples? Choice A: A decrease in consumer incomes (apples are a normal good). Choice B: A decrease in the price of apples. Choice C: An increase in the number of firms in the market. Choice D: An increase in the price of pears, a substitute for apples. Choice A is incorrect because a decrease in consumer incomes should cause a decrease in demand for apples, given that apples are a normal good. Choice A would be true if apples were an inferior good, meaning that when people have less money they buy more apples rather than some preferred alternative, which would increase demand for apples. Choice B is incorrect because a decrease in price of apples would be a movement along the demand curve, increasing the quantity demanded, but not increasing demand. The demand curve does not shift when the price changes, because the demand curve already is a representation of the quantity demanded at each price point. Choice C is incorrect...

Assume that the weather in Florida is exceptionally cold this year and has damaged the citrus crops, raising the costs for the companies that use a lot of oranges to produce orange juice. Indicate which of the following statements describing the resulting effects in the market for orange juice are true of false. #1. The demand for orange juice decreases. #2. The quantity of orange juice demanded decreases. #3. The supply of orange juice decreases. #4. The quantity of orange juice supplied decreases. When faced with a question like this, the first thing to determine is whether this problem deals with a change in supply or a change in demand. In this problem we are discussing the costs of production for orange juice producers. We don’t see any information mentioned about the consumers who purchase orange juice. This tells us two things: a change in the production costs leads to a shift in the supply curve , but the habits of consumers have not changed so there is no shift in the de...

Target (Example) • For finding Revenue you should find the Income Statement for your firm. The Income Statement (example below) is where you will find Revenues (needed for Milestone Two), Costs (needed for Milestone Three), and Net Earnings (or “Profit”). The first line will show you the revenue (or sales) and the line immediately below the total sales will show you the Costs of Goods Sold (COGS). Sometimes this is also called Cost of Revenue or Cost of Sales. These are the VARIABLE COSTS that your firms face, which is important in Milestone 3! Right beneath your variable costs you should see Selling General and Administrative expenses (SG&A), which are your FIXED COSTS. There is another post that explains why fixed and variable costs differ, but for now I want to focus on where you will see these costs on your Income Statement. • Notice for Total Revenues it shows from 2009 to 2014. If there isn’t a chart provided in the income statement that shows that trend you’ll need to cre...