Week 2, Private property, just prices, opportunity cost

 Readings for Monday Sept. 7.

The main book for this course, The Economics Book, is available in e-book format from Amazon for about 10 euros or dollars. A link to the book is in the right-hand column of this blog.
For Monday's class, please read in The Economics Book

• The introduction 
• Let the trading begin, p. 10, location 241
• Property should be private, p. 20, location 276
• What is a just price? p. 22, location 323

We will talk about the issues in class.

For your enjoyment: Economists study whether you should stay in a relationship with your boyfriend/girlfriend or look for someone else. What is the opportunity cost? The Planet Money Summer School podcast explores this issue as well as the sunk cost fallacy, marginal cost, and marginal benefit.

Exercise 1, due Friday, Sept. 11. 

Price comparisons, Amazon vs. Carrefour online and Carrefour in-store.

The goal of this exercise is to see if there are differences between in-store prices for certain goods and the price to have them delivered to your home.

1. Work in groups of two or three. Download the Exercise 1 document to your computer. 

2. Find 10 products on the Carrefour and Amazon websites: they could be electronics, clothing, food, pet products, etc.
3. Make sure they are identical or comparable in terms of quantity or size and quality. You might want to choose just one type of products: international foods, pet products, hardware and tools, cleaning products, men's clothing, women's clothing, etc.

4. Enter the price offered by Carrefour and Amazon. Make sure you choose the price they charge for home delivery. 

5. Then enter the price for the same item in the Carrefour store in Pamplona.

6. Compare the prices and add your observations at the end, along with the names of both participants.

7. Upload the spreadsheet or a PDF of the document to ADI

This assignment is due on Friday Sept. 11.