Principles of Microeconomics
Blog Assignment Economics is not just information for the classroom; it is information you can use and apply in the real world. Many economists maintain great blogs that look at current events, interesting news stories, recent academic research, or just everyday life with easy-to-read commentary. Typically, the vast majority of posts can be easily understood if you have a principles-level understanding of economics. To get you acquainted with economics in the real world, you will have a blog assignment. I list four blogs below that you must use; no other blog, news site, etc. is acceptable. Only use a post with sufficient commentary by the post author. When you find a recent blog post that interests you, write up at least a two-paragraph comment in Microsoft Word. Your comment should 1) relate the topic of the post to a topic we’ve discussed in class, 2) assess whether the author is correct or incorrect, 3) be written well using correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar, 4) include the blog post title, the date it was originally posted, and the full URL of the post you’ve referenced (i.e. cafehayek.com is not sufficient). Plagiarism of blog comments will be treated the same way as any other incident of cheating or plagiarism. So that current topics can be analyzed, you may only use a post that was published on or later than the first day of the course. Only Blogs You Can Use Cafe Hayek: cafehayek.com EconLog: econlog.econlib.org Greg Mankiw’s blog: gregmankiw.blogspot.com Paul Krugman’s blog: krugman.blogs.nytimes.com Potential Topics You Can Use #1: guideposts/pitfalls, property rights, supply & demand, price controls #2: GDP, inflation, business cycles, unemployment #3: causes of recession/inflation, fiscal policy, institutions and growth #4: money/financial system, the Fed, Fed policy/effect on the economy, international growth, trade issues
