Matt Nolan

ECON130 Week 4: Producer Theory

/in , /by

Hi everyone.

My apologies that we can’t meet in person anymore – as the university is now running classes online due to the COVID-19 quarantine. You will have seen that the lectures are already online – feel free to watch them when you can. Lecture 7 slides are here and Lecture 8 slides are here.

This week we are switching from thinking about consumers to thinking about producers. Instead of asking why someone may purchase a product, or select a set of products from an available set, we are asking about the incentive to sell those products.

As is the case with consumer theory we leave prices fixed for now so we can focus on where the scarcity is and what incentives the producer has.

This week we focused solely on costs – lets talk a bit more about those. Specifically I want to summarise some of the ideas we covered in a different way (starting at the end of the 8th lecture rather than the start of the 7th) to hopefully help tie everything together.

Read more
Matt Nolan

Econ 130 Weeks 1-3: Another perspective – simulating choice

/in , /by

As a way of thinking through the material in the last three weeks of class (Week One, Two, and Three) I’d be keen for you to watch a video from the Primer Youtube channel. Note: I prefer to hyperlink rather than embed the link, so the channel provider gets the ad revenue – it doesn’t always work through WordPress.

This is not compulsory for the course, and will not be assessed. But if you can follow the video, and understand how it relates to the concepts I list below, then you have a great grasp of the content!

Read more
Matt Nolan

ECON 130 Week 3: Consumer theory continued

/in , /by

Hello all!

Last week you learned about indifference curves and budget constraints, and how we could use these concepts to understand individual choice. In the end we were able to build a demand curve that related the quantity demanded by an individual to the price of the product.

This week you will go through more details about the demand curve, and then go into other examples where the budget constraint is not “monetary income at a point in time” but instead related to intertemporal consumption and the work-leisure choice with your scarce time.

These examples are a bit more complex, so if you don’t understand them at first that is normal – just keep going through them to see if you can.

Read more
Matt Nolan

ECON130 Week 2: Consumer theory

/in , /by

Hello again everyone.

This week a different lecture is coming in to discuss economics with you – he’s great and you are all going to have a wonderful time.

I cannot link your lecturer’s slides here – but he is covering similar ground to other years. As a result, here is the Wednesday and Thursday slides from last year.

This week you have focused on trying to understand our friend the rational consumer, and how we can express the following:

  1. The opportunity set they have available to them.
  2. The choice they make given that opportunity set.
Read more
Matt Nolan

ECON 130 (Intro Micro) Week One

/in , /by

Hi everyone – welcome to what will become a (regular) Wednesday post, even thought today is Tuesday.

To the students reading this, welcome to VUW’s ECON 130. The purpose of these weekly posts is to outline some of the key questions we should be able to think through given what we have worked through in class. You can also comment on these posts with questions from class if you want it to be seen publicly (including by your lecturer and other economists from around New Zealand).

The goal here is to think about what we are doing and why – if it is a suggestion about how to teach the content better then I’m all ears, but it is probably better just to email me 😉

Read more