Lecture List

0. Course InformationAugust 30Grading Policy, Course Overview, etc.
1. CapitalSeptember 1Factors of Production, Capital, rent vs. buy
2. The Recipe EconomySeptember 6Economic Growth; what is the cure for poverty?
3. GDP CalculationsSeptember 8How to Calculate Nominal GDP, Real GDP, and the Implicit Deflator
4. Economic Growth BasicsSeptember 13A short summary of facts and concepts related to economic growth
5. Growth CalculationsSeptember 15How to Make Calculations Involving Growth Rates
6. Basic Economic TerminologySeptember 20Economic terms that come up in business analysis, including opportunity cost, unit labor cost, and substitution
Business AnalysisSeptember 15, 20, 22Presentations of Business Analysis
7. Cross-country Growth DifferencesSeptember 27Differences in the standard of living across countries
8. Introduction to TradeOctober 4Intuition and history of the argument for free trade
9. Comparative AdvantageOctober 6Numerical illustrations of comparative advantage
10. Trade, Wages, and SavingOctober 13Trading with low-wage countries; how saving affects the trade balance
11. Oil MarketsOctober 18How futures markets and storage work
12a. Annuity CalculationsOctober 20Annuities, mortgage payments, and other fun stuff (helps for understanding Social Security)
12b. Social Security IntroductionOctober 20How Social Security Really Works
13. Social Security Part 2October 25Policy proposals for dealing with Social Security
14. Social Security 2005October 27Issues that arose during the reform debate
15. Book ReviewNovember 1Expectations and Grading Criteria
16. Health Care IntroNovember 3start of health care policy unit
17. Crisis of AbundanceNovember 8How "premium medicine" accounts for heavy spending
18. Dollars and DecisionsNovember 10The how and why of using cost-benefit analysis in health care
19. Insulation vs. InsuranceNovember 15What's wrong with health insurance today
20. Health Care SummaryNovember 17Health Care Wrap-up: inevitable trade-offs
21. Education Unit IntroductionNovember 22Basic trends and economic issues in education
22. Education VouchersNovember 29Economic analysis of school choice
23. College EducationDecember 1Economic analysis of college education subsidies

Below are lectures that are from last year. Many of them will be revised for this year.

24. PredictionsDecember 8Predictions for coming decades

In addition to the lectures listed above, there is an optional lecture that I use to pitch the textbook.