Economics 100A
Intermediate Economic Theory
Welcome to the Economics 100A Website. Here you will find the course syllabus,
a schedule of lessons, homework and examinations, and some bits of advice.
If you are taking Econ 100A, please check this site regularly. We will
routinely use this site for posting announcements and answering questions.
Office: North Hall 2052
Office Hours: W 9-10am and 2-3 pm, and by appointment
Email: tedb@econ.ucsb.edu |
Course Introduction
Click
Here to Learn the Ground Rules for Econ 100A
Diagnostic
Math Quiz (Adobe Acrobat pdf file)
Answers
to Diagnostic Math Quiz
Course Schedule
Click
Here to See the Course Schedule
Announcements:
Friday Quiz: If you are in Marick Sinay's section that meets
on Wednesday at 5 pm,
you should go to Phelps 3515 to take the Friday quiz. Friday's
quiz will still contain some
questions that are revisions of quizzes in the back of Workouts, but
it will also have more
questions that you haven't seen before. The best way to study--Read
the text and do lots of problems.
Special Office Hours on Th Oct 11
Chau Do will hold office hours from 8:30-11:30 on Thursday and will
not have office hours on
Friday. Professor Bergstrom will have an extra office hour from 2-3
pm on Thursday.
Scholarship Possibility from Society of Women Accountants (Both sexes
can apply)
Click here for information.
Quiz scores for quiz 1 are now available. Scroll down
the page to find your score under "YOUR SCORE ON QUIZZES".
Time pressure and Phelps overflow:
A group of students from this class were brought over to Phelps Hall
to take their exam. They started their exam about 5 minutes later
than the students in Buchanan and some complained that they had too little
time. I compared the distribution of scores for people in Phelps
to people in Buchanan. The mean score of people in Phelps was 2 points
lower than that of people in Buchanan. To compensate for the
time difference, I added 2 points to the score of each person who took
the exam in Phelps. For people who took the exam in Phelps,
I will
also make the following accommodation. If your score on
Quiz 1 is your fifth worst score,
I will drop this quiz and count your fourth worst score twice.
Special office hours on the week of Oct 1-5
For this week, Chau Do will switch her Thursday office hour
to Tuesday (Oct 2) 12-1pm
Oddgeir Ottesen will hold his regular office hour on Tuesday
from 9:30-11 am.
Marick Sinay will switch his Weds am office hour to Tuesday
from 10:45-12:15 this week.
Professor Bergstrom will hold extra office hours on Tuesday
from 3-4:30 pm.
Scantron Sheets
Buy yourself a bunch of Parscore scantron sheets. These
should be the large reddish ones like we used for the math quiz. They are
called Form F-1712 and are available at the bookstore and at the Arbor.
Do not get your scantron sheet crumpled and torn. Damaged sheets don't
go through the machine properly and may cost you points on your quizzes.
Book Buyer Beware
The last time I taught this course, a student messaged me about his
unfortunate experience in ordering from varsity books, an online bookseller
that has been advertising aggressively. They sent him the old edition.
When he called them to tell them they sent him the wrong book, they refused
to pay shipping and delivery for him to return the wrong book. There is
a lot to be said for dealing with your reliable and well-informed
local bookstores.
Answers to Quizzes and Final
Answers
to Quiz 1
Your Score on Quizzes
To look up your quiz score, click
here. Type in your perm number in the space where it is requested
and select the information that you want by clicking in the "Test" box.
Distribution of Scores on Quizzes
Quiz
1 Scores and Grade Ranges
Office Hours of TAs and Instructor
Ted Bergstrom
North Hall 2052 W 9-10 am and
2-3 pm and by appointment
Also, after almost every class I will be available in or just outside
the classroom for a few minutes.
Chau Do
(Instructor for Friday sections)
North Hall 2017
Fri 10-1, Th 8:30-9:30
Oddgeir Ottesen (Instructor
for TuTh sections)
North Hall 2051 Mon 9:30-11am, Tues
9:30-11am
Marick Sinay
(Instructor for Weds sections)
North Hall 2021 Weds 9-10:30 and 3:30-5 pm.
You can address an e-mail message to any of the above by clicking his
or her name.
Lecture Slides
Some people have expressed the wish that they could see copies of the lecture
notes because they weren't able to write everything down. It is not
important to write everything down. What you should do is to pay
attention to the class discussion and try to understand as much as you
can during the discussion. I believe you will be better off reading the
textbook carefully and working problems than trying to memorize the lecture
notes. But for those of you who really, really want lecture
notes, here are some notes. These notes are similar to but by no means
identical to the classroom lectures.
Chapter
2, Budgets
Chapter
3, Preferences
Chapter
4, Utility
Chapter
5, Choice
Chapter
6, Demand
Chapter
7, Revealed Preference
Chapter
8, Slutzky
Chapter
9, Buying and Selling
Chapter
29, Exchange
Chapter
10, Intertemporal Choice
Chapter
11, Asset Markets
Chapter
12, Uncertainty
Last Year's Final Exam
Some people have asked what the final exam will be like. Of course
I can't tell you what questions will be on this year's exam, but I can
show you the exam that I used the last time I taught this course.
After you have studied from the textbook and Workouts, you may want to
take this exam as practice. Let me remind you that there is no substitute
for reading the textbook carefully and working lots of Workouts problems.
Click
here to see last year's exam as a pdf file. In order to read this file
you need to install an Adobe pdf reader on your computer.
Here
are explanations of the answers to a couple of the toughest questions on
last year's exam.
Study Aids and Features
The Iowa Electronic Market.
An actual contingent-commodity market in which the contingencies are outcomes
in political elections or events in the business world. If you want
to speculate with some real money, the website explains how you can buy
and sell contingent commodities in this market.
The UBC Election Stock Market
A contingent-commodity market on political outcomes in the Great White
North. (home of the McKenzie brothers, Wayne Gretzky,
and Professor Garratt)
Paul Krugman's
Home Page Most economic journalists don't know much economics
and most economists can't write worth a damn. Paul Krugman is a very
competent professional economist who also writes about economics for the
popular press. His home page has links to many of his popular articles.
Take a look. I think you will find at least some of them
both entertaining and instructive.
News Items
Varian's
Book inspires UCSB grad's Science Fiction
Popularity
of Economics
Salaries
of Econ Majors
Need a Little Study Break?
Visit Calvin and Hobbes