【ECON2101】Microeconomics

CA1 Individual Project Assessment

▪ This CA1 constitutes 30% of the overall ECO2101 Microeconomics course assessment.

Rationale of Individual Project

▪ This individual project allows you to pursue authentic learning and to apply theories taught in class to real world situations. This encourages independence and self-confidence as well as developing one’s thinking and analytical skills when working through real world situations.

Choosing Product Market for Analysis

▪ This project involves choosing product(s) for your project analysis, using microeconomics concepts discussed in Lectures 1 to 5 .

▪ The product or service market can be either general or specific, local, or international.

▪ Some examples of product or service market:

• Smartphones (general)

• Apple iphone (specific brand in the smartphone market)

• Starbuck Coffee in China (local, specific to a country)

• Coffee (international)

Choosing Articles as References for Analysis

▪ Search through newspapers sources (other sources are strictly not permitted), either in print or online for THREE (3) articles based on the product market you have chosen. Articles should contain real world situations . Articles that contain analysis or researched by others should not be used. The articles must be related to the concepts discussed in Lectures 1 to 5 .

▪ Articles must be from 1 st November 2023 onwards .

▪ The articles selected should be in English and based on the following topics:

Article 1 - Lecture Topic 1: PPF and Opportunity Cost

Article 2 - Lecture Topic 3: Market Equilibrium and Efficiency (Learning and understanding Lecture

Topic 2: Demand and Supply is a pre-requisite to learning Topic 3)

Article 3 - Lecture Topic 4: Elasticities

OR

- Lecture Topic 5: Utility and Demand

▪

Select THREE (3) articles on the SAME PRODUCT (for example, all 3 articles on coffee) or

DIFFERENT PRODUCTS (for example, 1 st article on coffee, 2 nd article on apparel and 3 rd article on smartphone) . Analysing your Product Market

▪ For each article, identify the event(s) or phenomena . Summarise these events in your own words.

▪ Analyse these events using the appropriate microeconomic concepts. Economic diagram(s) , where applicable must be drawn to support your analysis . Reproducing or paraphrasing the article does

NOT constitute an analysis.

▪ The following are some suggestions for the analysis:

✓ Using PPF concept to analyse a reduction in the production of crops due to natural disasters like earthquakes or flood (lecture 1 topic; the product can be wheat or coffee or cocoa)

✓ Using market equilibrium analysis to analyse the rise of price of oil due to a shortage in supply

or excess in demand (lecture 3 topic; the product here is oil) or using market equilibrium

analysis to analyse the changes in the price of semiconductor chips due to the high demand and

reduced supply of semiconductor chips (the product here is semiconductor).

✓ Using price elasticity of demand to analyse the elasticity of oil as price of oil rises due essential

needs and no close substitutability or shortage in supply and the impact on the consumer

expenditure on oil consumption (lecture 4 topic; the product here is oil)

✓ Using utility and demand to analyse on household consumption choices (lecture 5 topic:

income, budget constraints and utility)

Writing your Report

▪ Use Calibri Font Size 12pt. Number your pages. Use single line spacing. Do a full justification (that is

both left and right justified) of your report.

▪ The report should be between 1,000 to 1,500 words. Each Analysis should have at least 180 words.

▪ Use the template in Appendix 1 for your report format .

• Limit each analysis to one page.

• Begin each analysis on a new page. For example, analysis 2.1 on a new page, analysis 2.2 on

a new page, and so on.

• Ensure consistency throughout the report. For example, consistent formatting (such as

same font type and font size, same line spacing) throughout the whole report; diagrams are

all drawn using the same software such as Powerpoint and not some diagrams are drawn

using PowerPoint and some using Word or Excel software. Diagrams should not hand

drawn.

2

Analysis

2.1 Analysis 1 – Apple’s iphone 8 and iphone 8 Plus Models

(Topic 1: PPF and Opportunity Cost)

Source: Quote the source of the article or if the article is obtained from the web, quote

the web address

Summary

(One paragraph summarising the key event(s) in the article)

Analysis

(One to two paragraphs on analysing the key event(s) using microeconomic concepts)

(Economic diagram(s) to support the analysis)