Economics 1: Fall 2007

Experiments with Economic Principles

Welcome Lab Rats!

Instructor:

Ted Bergstrom

Office: North Hall 2052

email:tedb@econ.ucsb.edu

Office Hours: Weds 2-3, Fri 2-3
and by appointment

Course Information

Welcome to Economics 1

Required Text and Clicker

Course Requirements and Grading

Homework and Experimental Data

Instructional Team and Office Hours

Schedule of Lectures, Sections Meetings and Quizzes

        Watch Here for New Announcements


The final exam will be on Friday, Dec 14 from 12-3 pm. The final will be administered in two separate rooms. If your last name begins with the letter D, L, or R, you must go to Buchanan 1920 to take your final.   Everyone else should come to Campbell Hall.   You must bring a photo ID to your final exam and show it when you turn in your exam. Do not bring cell phones or any other device that communicates outside the classroom.

We have scheduled special review sessions for the week of the final exam. These will all be in North Hall 1110.
The times are Tuesday 3-5, Wednesday 2-4, and Thursday, 1-3.

The homework dog has your homework scores for the first six homework assignments. Go to the
link for Homework and Experimental Data, and click on the homework dog. Use your class id number, not your perm, to discover your score on each homework.

I have posted total clicker scores up to Nov 28. Please check with the clicker rat to see that your scores are being recorded. A few people have not entered their correct perm numbers in their clicker. If this happens,
the clicker rat will report a zero score for you.   If you have been clicking in under a mistyped perm number or if you have been using your class id instead of your perm number, we can recover your scores. But you have to let me know.

Quiz 2 scores are now posted. You can find an answer key and a key to grade ranges below.
You can find your own score by clicking on the scores rat, choosing quiz 2 and entering your perm number.
I have also posted copies of each of Form A of quiz 2 below.

I made a mistake with the answer to the question about the effect of a $5 sales tax.   The correct answer is that it increases both average and marginal cost by $5. A majority of you gave the correct answer. Andy Shu popped up to the podium after class and quickly wrote down a nice clear equation to prove the correct result.
I have created a new slide in this Power Point to show Andy's answer.

Quiz 1 scores are now posted.   You can find an answer key and a key to grade ranges below.
You can find your own score by clicking on the scores rat, choosing quiz 1 and entering your perm number.
I have also posted copies of each of the four forms of the quiz.

We started recording clicker attendance and scores this Friday, Oct 26. You can find how you have done from
Oct 26-Nov 5 by mouse-clicking the clicker rat.
The clickers are intended mainly to help you learn and to help me to keep in touch with how much you know.
Your clicker scores can not lower your grade if you attend at least half of the remaining classes in the term.
If you attend less than half of the classes, it will cost you half a letter grade. If you do especially well with your clicker, you will receive a small amount of extra credit.

You can find your total profits and your normalized score from Experiments 1-3 and Experiment 5 by clicking the Profits Money Bag and entering your class id number.

Online Readings Related to Current Topics:

Housing Market and Sunk Costs
Boiled Shrimp and Sunk Costs
The Alaska Salmon Catch
Florida Oranges
Frost on California Oranges

tort Tortilla Price Increase
Price increase for Craft Beers
Why restaurants fail
Entry in the real estate business

Collusion and Art Sales
Sotheby's and Christie's
Economics of Traffic Congestion
The Purloined Letter (Edgar Allen Poe) A great short story about hide and seek.
Psychology and Hide and Seek
Prices and Quantities of Navel Oranges in local grocery stores after the frost.

Lecture Notes

Here we supply some slides that are used in the lectures. Just click on the appropriate date below. The slides use Power Point as well as Macromedia's Flash, a program common to interactive web pages. If you have a recent version of Netscape or Internet Explorer, you should be able to view them without a problem.

Click here for lectures

Answers to Quiz 1 Grade Ranges for Quiz 1

Answers to Quiz 2 Grade Ranges for Quiz 2

Copies of Quiz 1: Form A, Form B, Form C, Form D

Copy of Quiz 2: Form A

The Test Scores Rat

Click the rat below to look up your scores on quizzes. In the window that opens, click on the "test" box and choose the quiz for which you want the score. Enter your Class ID number (not your perm number) in the box labelled "id number." Then click on "Get Score". A little box will appear with your score on the selected quiz.

The Test Scores Rat

Note:
We do not negotiate grades. Pleas for a better (or a worse) grade will fall on deaf ears..

The Clicker Score Rat

I am using the clickers mainly learning device, not a testing device. If you show up in class more than half of the time, they cannot count against you. If you show up less than half the time, it can cost you up to a letter grade. We started counting scores on October 26. I will give some extra credit for those who do very well with the clickers. If you miss one or two days, don't worry. At the end of class, when I total up clicker scores, I will drop everyone's lowest two scores.

To find your score, click the rat, type in your PERM NUMBER, select a score and click "Get Score".
.

The Clicker Rat

On the "informational questions", any response is counted as correct and gives you three points. (On some of the "game" questions,
with repeated responses, I counted only the first and last response, so these are worth a total of 6 points.)

On the economics questions, there are three points for a correct answer, one point for any answer at all.
A perfect score for the period from Oct 26-Nov 21 is 174. The highest possible scores per day were 12 on Oct 26, 15 on Oct 29, 27 on Oct 31, 15 on Nov 2, 21 on Nov 5, 18 on Nov 7, 18 on Nov 9, 9 on Nov 14, 9 on Nov 16, and 9 on Nov 21, 9 on Nov 26 and 12 on Nov 28. The highest score in the class is 169. The top 10% of the class have 144 or better. The top 20% of the class have 136 or better. The median score is112.

Profits

Click the money bag below to look up your profits in the Experiments. In the window that opens, click on the "test" box and choose
the item for which you want the score. Enter your Class ID number (not your perm number) in the box labelled "id number." Then click on "Get Score"

The Profits Money Bag

Total profits for Experiment 1 (Profit1) are the total profits you made in the first and last rounds of each Session. (Profits from Round 2 of Session 2 in Experiment 1 were not counted.) The score that counts towards you grades is called "winnings". Your profits for any day are scaled according to the average earnings of persons in the class with the same buyer values or seller costs as yours. These scaled profits are called winnings, and they will vary between 3 and 10. If your profit is in the top 20% of participants of your same type, your winnings will be 10. If your profit is in the bottom 10% of participants of your type, your winnings will be 3.

As of November 6, the profits money bag reports scores for Experiments 1-3, 5 and 8. The highest possible score is 50. One person has a perfect score. The median score is about 34. When we record final totals, we will drop everyone's lowest score.

See the link for Course Grades and Requirements for more details of normalized scores.

Practice, Practice, Practice....
Here are some practice questions that might help you to prepare for the next quiz

Practice Questions for Chapter 1

Practice Questions on Shifting Supply and Demand Curves

Practice Questions on Elasticity

Practice Questions on Sales Taxes

Homework Answers

Click here to find answers to your homework assignments.

Miscellaneous News Items

Medical Advice on Learning
Calvin and Hobbes Just in case you need a short study break