Prelims work

Tutorial Sheets and Maths workbook

• Tutorial Sheets available here.
• Maths workbook available here.

Deadlines and submissions

• Mondays at 7pm (economics and maths).
• Please submit all assignments to your personal OneDrive file
  • Please scan written work to a pdf file, not jpg photos of work (there are apps that can do this). A lot of helpful advice is given here.
  • Please export typed work as a pdf file.
  • One pdf document for the whole assignment, but separate economics and maths.
  • Name documents as “firstname_lastname_Econ_WeekX” or “firstname_lastname_Maths_WeekX” where X refers to the week of the tutorial you are submitting the assignment for.

Pointers for assignments

• Always show working/steps for problems. Briefly state what the quantity you’re computing is, or give a brief intuition of what’s going on.
• 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.
• Sheet 4 Q 1,2,3,5. Longer question 2

Week 2

Tutorial Sheet 1

• Problems 1-7
• Question 1: think about this, make some notes for tutorial conversation.

Maths class 2: Sheet 5

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

Week 3

Tutorial Sheet 2

• Problems 1,2,4
• Question 6: full essay.

A few points on essay writing in economics:

• The core of the essay is to answer a question in the context of an economic model. With this in mind, you should start by identifying and explaining the relevant economic model. 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 answer the question, ideally in the context of 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. Does free trade give rise to problems in a way that the model wouldn’t identify because it’s too simple?
• Obviously you can also take the counter line and say that free trade is in fact never bad: justify, preferably analytically.
• Sources of information: you can browse around in books or online. I recommend Our World in Data which is a brilliant project to synthesise and elegantly represent data from the academic literature so it’s easily accessible. Note that this recommendation is general. I haven’t checked whether it has anything useful to say about trade.
• Although you should cite your sources (& give a list of references at the end), the quality of your essay is not judged on the number of your sources. I think in some of your joint schools you are expected to read a lot and show that you have done so. In economics, the game is much more, show that you have understood the theory (that you learnt in lectures) and then think about its application. I would rather see you think it through for yourself, than summarise the latest academic literature!
• How to include figures? You are welcome to draw them by hand and take a picture. If you’d like to draw them in graphic software, (https://inkscape.org/)[inkscape] is free and fairly straightforward. You can sometimes crop pictures out of slides, electronic versions of textbooks, etc. While I don’t mind per se, there is something to be said for drawing the thing for yourself. The information goes in better, I find.

Maths class 3: Sheet 6.

• Sheet 6: Quick questions 1,2,3,9.

Week 4

Tutorial Sheet 3 (producer theory)

• Problems: 1,2,3,7
• Question 1 (just a paragraph, not an essay)

Maths class 4:

• Problem 6,8 from tutorial sheet 3
• Workbook Sheet 6 longer question 2
• Sheet 7 Quick questions 1,2,4,5,6.
• Sheet 7 Longer question 1: use the log method we discussed last week!

Week 5

Tutorial Sheet 4 (consumer theory)

• Problems 1,2,3,4,5,
• Question 2,4

Maths class 5

• Tutorial sheet 3 problem 5.
• Tutorial sheet 4 problems 6,7.
• Maths workbook sheet 9 quick question 3

Week 6

Tutorial Sheet 5 (games and other-regarding preferences)

• Problems 1,3, 4, 5,7
• Essay 10. Shorter essay, 1-2 pages.

Maths class 6

• A question I will pose on Cobb-Douglas
• Maths workbook sheet 7 longer question 2
• Tutorial sheet 5 Problems 6,7

Week 7

Tutorial sheet 6 (Monopoly and Oligopoly)

• Problems 1,4
• Essay 8. Longer essay, 2-3 pages.

Maths class 7

• Tutorial Sheet 6 Questions 2, 3
• Workbook sheet 8 questions 3