1-

Substitutes and Complements (Chapter 2)

1. How do retail stores display their merchandise taking into account substitute or complementary goods? Give some examples.
2. Have your purchases been influenced by these marketing techniques? Give some examples.

2-

 A) Principle of diminishing Marginal utility. (Chapter 10)

A local restaurant offers an “all you can eat” ribs special. If a person pays $11.95, he can eat as many servings as he desires at no additional cost. Do you think the local restaurant will go bankrupt because people will eat much more than what they are paying for? Why?

B)News and microeconomics

This week we introduced key concepts like elasticity, sunk costs, diminishing marginal satisfaction, fixed costs, variable costs, average costs and marginal costs. All these concepts relate to the Demand and Supply of your firm of interest, and these concepts are quantitative in nature. It could be nice if you could include some article that discuss demand elasticity values or costs for the firm you are interested in.

To start this topic,  a student should give a link of a very recent business news article or journal article. Add a provocative comment/question for others to continue the discussion, and build the empirical evidence needed for your project. 

I expect this discussion to support ideas for your paper.

3-

A)Market Structures

Many economists believe the strict definition of perfect competition does not exist in the real world. Yet, the market equilibrium in this market is claimed to be efficient, and all other markets (monopoly, oligopoly and monopolistic competition) that are more realistic, are evaluated in terms of their distance from the equilibrium in a perfect competitive market. 

Would you be in favor of having only very competitive firms in your town? Try to explain the pros and cons of it with examples. 

B) 

News and microeconomics

This week we focused on four different types of markets:  perfect competitive markets,  monopoly, oligopoly and monopolistic competition.

To start this topic,  a student should give a link of a very recent business news article or journal article. Add a provocative comment/question for others in your group to continue the discussion, and build the empirical evidence needed for your project. 

I expect this discussion to help you advance ideas for your paper.

4) 

Black Markets

Tickets to athletic events, concerts and other venues are often resold at higher than original prices. In some states, scalping is outright illegal, while in other states, scalping is legal under certain circumstances.

You may have your own opinion about scalping, and it may be related to moral issues. I would like you to use some of the concepts you have learned in this course to analyze the issue and answer the following questions:

1. Is the original ticket price necessarily an accurate measure of the equilibrium price?

2. Who are the winners and losers in scalping?

——————————————————————————————

 Short but Complete – Limit your posts to 1-2 paragraphs. However, thoughts need to be fully developed to ensure that when other students and the instructor read the comments they are cogent and coherent.  This also means that the entries need to be written in proper business communications format.  

 1 idea/1 paragraph – The entire paragraph should present ONE single idea. If you have other idea, that should go in a separate paragraph. Within a paragraph, the 1st sentence reflects the most important message. Following sentences support the idea mentioned in the 1st sentence. The last sentence concludes the idea.