Prelims work

Deadlines and submissions

• Maths assignments: Mondays at midnight. Please use the dropbox submission links below. Note that they are different week by week.
• Economics assignments: Tuesdays at midnight. Please submit all tutorial work to your individual onedrive directories

Pointers for Tutorial assignments

• Please submit your micro tutorial assignments as one PDF file on OneDrive, naming documents as “firstname_lastname_weekX” where X refers to the week of the tutorial you are submitting the assignment for. Please scan (not photograph) any written work (there are apps that can do this). A lot of helpful advice is given here.
• Always show working/steps for problems
• 3 things I look for in a good essay:
  • Make sure to focus on answering the specific question being asked
  • Demonstrate an understanding of models – in other words, don’t just state results, but explain or show how we get to those results, and what assumptions are needed. Often the easiest way to do this is through graphs/equations. Don’t go overboard, though: it’ll be context-specific how thorough you can be here, and don’t give very detailed derivations. A rule of thumb is that you shouldn’t spend more than half your essay on the model.
  • A clear and nuanced discussion that considers different perspectives on the question. It can be helpful to begin your essays with 1-2 lines clearly summarising your argument.
• There’s a good guid to writing essays in economics in section 3 of the exam guidance document on Canvas.

Week 1

Maths class 1

• Sheet 1
  Q3-14. Please do Q13 (simultaneous equations) by the “elimination method”.
• Sheet 2
  Questions 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9.
• Sheet 3
  Quick questions 1, 3, 6, 7; Longer Question 1.
• Sheet 4 Q 1,2,3,5. Longer question 2

Week 2

Maths class 2: Sheet 5

• Q 1,2,4. Longer question 1.
• Also, draw the isoquants for the function min (2x+y, x+2y)

Submission link

Tutorial Sheet 1 (models, opportunity cost and trade)

• Problems 1, 2, 4
• Question 4
  Concise essay, up to 3 pages normal writing.

A few points on essay writing in economics:

• The core of the essay should be to explain an economic model. In this case, the model is the story of comparative advantage you’ll be learning about in lectures. You have to go through this, even though it is not creative, the point is to show you’ve understood the core of the bookwork.
• Having done that, try to critique the model. Thinking of ways in which free trade might be bad is good; linking them back to the model (if you can) is better. Obviously you can also take the counter line and say that free trade is in fact never bad: justify, preferably analytically.

Week 3

Maths class 3: Sheet 6.

• Sheet 6: Quick questions 1,2,3,6,7,9. Longer question 1
• Tutorial sheet 2, problems 2 and 4

Submission link

Tutorial Sheet 2 (exchange)

• Problems 1,3,6,7,8
• (Maybe discuss some of the essay topics at the end of the Tutorial Sheet if there’s time)

Week 4

Maths class 4: Sheet 7

• Quick questions 1,2,4,5,6
• Longer Question 1.

Submission link

Tutorial Sheet 3 (producer theory)

• Problems: 1,2,3,5,6
• Question 1 (just a paragraph, not an essay)

Week 5

Maths class 5

• Tutorial sheet 3 problem 4
• Tutorial sheet 4 Questions 5,6,8,9(a,b). Don’t worry about 9(c)

Submission link

Tutorial Sheet 4 (consumer theory)

• Problems 2,3,7
• Question 2,3,4

Week 6

Maths class 6

• Maths workbook sheet 7 longer question 3
• Maths workbook sheet 9 quick question 1, 3
• Tutorial sheet 5 Problem 6 NB: do not worry about the method of Lagrange multipliers. You will study that with Richard next year. Just approach these questions with methods 1 and 2.

Submission link

Tutorial Sheet 5 (games and other-regarding preferences)

• Problems 1, 3, 4, 5
• Essay 8: 1-2 paragraphs

Week 7

Maths class 7

• workbook sheet 8 question 1

Submission link

Tutorial: no Tutorial Sheet, quants class, Priya has sent work

Week 8

Maths class 8

• Tutorial Sheet 6 Questions 2&3
• Maths workbook sheet 9 Q3
• Go over everything outstanding, and I’ll re-cover anything that was too fast – please email me with specific requests

Submission link

Tutorial sheet 6 (the firm; the price-setting firm)

• Problems 1,4
• Essay: since monopolies make super-normal profits, would it be a good idea to tax them?

Week 1 of HT

Tutorial sheet 7

• Problems 1 - 5
• Essay 7 (BBC)