Indonesia: Better Spending by Local Governments Leads to Better Public Services

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2016/04/27/indonesia-better-spending-by-local-governments-lead-to-better-public-services

Group Assignment – Managerial Economics

As your Group Assignment, you are required to conduct a Cost and Benefit Analysis of the Construction Project of Male’-Hulhule’ Bridge, and write a Report based on the analysis. In your analysis, you are required to consider the benefits to the individuals, businesses, and the society as a whole. Benefits may be expressed in monetary terms, and as well as non-monetary terms. Likewise, discussion of costs will include both accounting costs, as well as other economic costs like the opportunity costs of Bridge.

Based on your discussion of the costs and benefits of the Bridge, what will be your recommendations about the Project?

Key Terms applicable in your Assignment include:

Publics Goods

Tragedy of the Commons and the Use of common resources

Free-rider problem

Scarcity and Opportunity Costs

Positive and Negative Externalities

Guidelines:

1. It has to be team effort of the Group - you can assign tasks among all group members, and make sure there is contribution of all the members. I may be assessing individual participation at a later stage.
2. The Report should be between 2500 - 3000 words
3. The Assignment covers 30% of your Aggregate marks
4. Due date is 19th May 2016
5. Assignment will be marked based on the following criteria:

Literature Review	20
Presentation of Discussion	40
Recommendations	30
Clarity	10
Total	100

Questions - Macroeconomics part 1

1. 
   
   1. State 3 possible macro economic policy objectives of the Maldives government.
   
   2. Show using a diagram, the potential impact on Maldives GDP of a continuing fall in tourist arrivals. 
   

   
   3. Evaluate with the help of appropriate diagrams, whether unemployment subsidies, or conducting a youth training program is likely to be more effective in reducing the level of youth unemployment in the Maldives. 

   
   4. Using the concept of Production Possibilities Frontier, explain how a developing country, and developed country achieves economic growth.
   
   5. Define structural unemployment.
   
   6. Explain the concept of diminishing marginal returns using the total capital accumulation in a country. 
   
   7. Explain the difference between demand-pull inflation and cost-push inflation.
   
   8. Using both aggregate demand and aggregate supply diagrams, explain how the government uses its fiscal policy to counter fluctuations in the business cycles in the economy, over a period of ten years. 
   
   9. Differentiate between nominal and real GDP. 
   
   10. Discuss the limitations of using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to calculate the inflation of a country.
   
   
   11. Some people envisage a sharp increase in the proportion of old age pensioners in the population. Assuming that pensions are paid out by the government and that old age pensioners tend to spend more time abroad than the young, what will be the effects of the increase in their number on the economy:
   
   
   (a) when there is no capital mobility and the exchange rate is fixed;
   (b) when there is capital mobility and the exchange rate is fixed;
   (c) when there is capital mobility and the exchange rate is flexible. 
   
   
   
   
   12. To encourage savings in the Maldivian economy, the government proposes to shift from an income tax system to a system of consumption tax.
   
   
   

   1. (a)  what will be the effects of the change on total consumption?
      
   2. (b)  what will happen to equilibrium levels of income, and savings when wages and prices are fixed?
      
   3. (c)  how will your answer to (b) change had wages and prices been flexible? 
      
      
      
      
      
      
      

What can history tell us about cartels in commodity markets? - link from WB

http://blogs.worldbank.org/prospects/what-can-history-tell-us-about-cartels-commodity-markets?cid=EXT_TWBN_D_EXT&hootPostID=190335668a4454c594cd2c3a6e40d63c

Group Assignmnet - Complete Version

Your Task:

Your group assignment is to write a Report based on the theme Responsibility in the 'bottled-water' industry.
How and where they are produced, transported, marketed, sold, and consumed clearly affects the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainable development.
Your role as a team is to assess how we ought to relate to and deal with these problems in our roles as citizens, consumers and professionals?
In short, what responsibility do you have, and we, in different contexts, and if you have a responsibility, what does it mean for you?


Guidelines:

1. It has to be team effort of the Group - you can assign tasks among all group members, and make sure there is contribution of all the members. I may be assessing individual participation at a later stage.
2. The Report should be between 2500 - 3000 words
3. The Assignment covers 30% of your Aggregate marks
4. Due date is 28th March 2015
5. Assignment will be marked based on the following criteria:

Literature Review	20
Presentation of Discussion	30
Recommendations	40
Clarity	10
Total	100

Submission of assignments:

• The assignment should be accompanied by a completed assignment cover sheet. It is recommended that your names and your student numbers be included in the Cover Page of the assignment. The assignment cover page would be given to the students by the lecturer prior to the receipt of their assignments.
• Written assignments must be correctly referenced and written in acceptable English.  Be sure you acknowledge all sources of information in the body of your assignment and supply a reference list at the end.             
• A soft and hard copy of the assignment shall be submitted.

Late Assignments will be penalized as follows:

• Deduction of 5% marks per day would be applicable if the assignment exceeds the deadline.
• Assignments will not be entertained after 4 days from the due date.

Week 2 Questions - Firms and Markets

Hi all,

Here are some tutorial questions taken from your textbook. Will be useful if you attended all of them.

1. A commercial fisherman notices the following relationship between hours spent fishing and the quantity of fish caught:

Hours             Qty of fish 

0                            0

1                           10

2                           18

3                           24

4                           28

5                           30

a. What is the marginal product of each hour spent fishing?

b. Use these data to graph the fisherman's production function. Explain its shape.

c. The fisherman has a fixed cost of $10 (his pole). The opportunity cost of his time is $5 per hour. Graph the fisherman's total cost curve. Explain its shape. 

2. You are thinking of setting up a lemonade stand. The stand itself costs $200. The ingredients for each cup of lemonade cost $0.50

a. What is your fixed cost of doing business?

b. What is your variable cost?

c. Construct a table showing your total cost, average cost, and marginal cost for output levels varying from 0 to 10 gallons. (Hint: There are 16 cups in a gallon.   

3.  A firm has a fixed cost of $100 and average variable cost of $5 x Q, where Q is the number of units produced.
a. Construct a table showing total cost for Q from 0 to 10.
b. Graph the firm's curves for marginal cost and average cost.

IMF Staff Report on the economy of Maldives

Here's the full Report:

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2015/cr1568.pdf