Syllabus for Econ 50: Economic Analysis I

Basic Information

• Classes are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 10:30am-12:20pm, in 420-040. This is a synchronous course; please only enroll if you can make it to class at these times. Classes will not be recorded, and in-class polls will count as part of your grade.

• DO NOT SCHEDULE PERSONAL TRAVEL THAT CONFLICTS WITH EXAMS. There will be three Checkpoints (held during class) and one final exam. The dates are as follows:
  • Checkpoint 1: Monday, April 20
  • Checkpoint 2: Monday, May 4
  • Checkpoint 3: Monday, May 18
  • Final exam: Friday, June 5, 3:30-6:30pm (time set by University)

• Both the Econ 1 and Math 20 prerequisites for the course are strictly enforced. You must have taken these courses (or equivalent) before this quarter to enroll in Econ 50, not concurrently. If you have fulfilled these requirements at another school or through AP or other test credit, you may request a Math 20 waiver and/or an Econ 1 waiver. Please note that while you are allowed to use AP or transfer credit to waive the prerequisites for the course, it is not recommended that you do so; even though they cover the same material, the corresponding courses at Stanford are likely to be far more rigorous than courses you may have taken in high school or community college, and are therefore likely to prepare you for greater success in Econ 50.

• If you are an athlete traveling on Stanford business, you should arrange to have an official traveling with the team administer your test. Please fill out this form for each test you will have to miss.

• Students whose summer jobs or internships require them to be off campus on the date of the final may take the exam remotely, but must arrange with their employer to have their exam proctored concurrently with the rest of the class. Please note that the only valid reasons to take an exam remotely are an internship and athletes who are traveling to compete for Stanford. No other exceptions will be granted. So, for example, if you have a family wedding/birthday/graduation that requires you to travel on the date of the final, please take the course in another quarter.

• If you have an OAE letter granting you extra time on exams, we will provide you with a link to upload it. (Please don’t email it to Professor Makler or your TA; they’ll just politely send you the link to the form.) Due to a flurry of last-minute requests, the OAE staff has requested us to impose a strict deadline of two weeks before any exam to submit an OAE letter. Rare exceptions for medical emergencies may be made at my discretion.

Teaching Team

• Lecturer: Christopher R Makler. My email is cmakler@stanford.edu, but please do not use it unless it’s a private personal matter; instead, please use Ed Discussions. I will hold office hours on Thursdays from 3-5pm in Econ 151. You may schedule a 1:1 appointment with me using this link. I also regularly have lunch in Arrillaga Dining Commons directly after class.

• Econ 50Q section leader: Joshua Gross

TAs, section times, and TA office hours will be posted on Canvas.

Course Overview

Econ 50 is one of the most required undergraduate courses on Stanford campus. It is a “core course” in not only the Economics major, but a number of other majors (like MS&E) and tracks within majors (like the Political Economy and Development track in Political Science). The reason this course is seen as a prerequisite to so many other courses is not in the content it teaches, but in the modeling skills it trains you to use:

• It introduces the fundamental building blocks — production functions and utility functions — which economists use to model a wide range of phenomena in the real world.
• It provides training in the optimization techniques that economists use to analyze a wide range of decisions made by individuals, firms, and governments.
• It shows how the tools of comparative statics and equilibrium analysis may be used by economic policymakers to understand the likely effects of policy proposals or changes in economic conditions.
• It applies these tools to fundamental social questions such as the most effective way to fight climate change; the tradeoff between present and future happiness; attitudes towards risk; and the optimal provision of public goods, to name a few.

Importantly, this is not a course in “Truth.” The specific model we will use to develop these skills is the neoclassical supply and demand model of competitive markets you’ve already learned in Econ 1 or AP Econ. We do not examine this model because it is True; indeed, it rests on assumptions (like perfect rationality, nonstrategic behavior, and perfect information) which modern economic thought regards as quaint in many important applications. Rather, we will use this model as a baseline for understanding how an economic model is constructed, and how its assumptions and structure imply its conclusions.

At a higher level than these modeling skills, the core value of this course — the one that’s most useful in a wide range of other courses, and real life — lies in understanding the relationship between real-world phenomena, mathematical models, and graphical representations. Regardless of what field you eventually go into, being able to communicate your ideas verbally, mathematically, and visually will be extremely important. Succeeding in Econ 50 will make you a better presenter of complex ideas, and a more persuasive advocate for causes you believe in.

Econ 50 and Econ 50Q

Many of Stanford’s peer institutions have two intermediate micro courses, at two different levels of math. Instead, there are two “flavors” of Econ 50 offered at Stanford: Econ 50, and Econ 50Q. Everyone in Econ 50 and Econ 50Q will come to the same lectures; however, the two courses will have slightly different readings, quizzes, problem sets, and exams. You should register for only one of these; you may change courses, just as you would change any other courses, at any time through the add/drop period.

The main difference between the two courses is in how technical they are; the “Q” in Econ 50Q is for “quantitative.” Both courses will give you a strong foundation in economic analysis, but 50Q sections will cover a wider variety of mathematical models, and devote more time to things like edge cases, than sections in Econ 50. Relative to the way Econ 50 was taught in the past, the “new” Econ 50 will be slightly less quantitative than it was in the past, while Econ 50Q will be slightly more quantitative.

The other key difference is in the level of math preparation each class assumes:

• Econ 50 will assume fluency in univariate calculus, especially a strong understanding of derivatives and optimization of functions of a single variable; sections in Econ 50 will be focused on teaching the tools of multivariable calculus alongside the economics which is being taught.
• Econ 50Q, on the other hand, will assume fluency in multivariable calculus; so instead of teaching multivariable calculus during section, their sections will analyze more complex questions.

Beyond these differences, the courses will be roughly identical, to the best of our abilities. Our goal is to have students in Econ 50Q take about the same amount of time as students in Econ 50 on problem sets, exams, and so forth. Put another way, 50Q isn’t “everything in 50, plus additional problems.” The homeworks and exams will have about the same number of questions; they will just vary in mathematical complexity.

Math prerequisites and guidance

Note: we used to require Math 51 for Econ 50, and many students who take Econ 50 have taken Math 51; they have reported that having taken Math 51 before Econ 50 was extremely helpful. While you can take Econ 50 without having previously taken a multivariate calculus course, you probably shouldn’t.

The enforced math prerequisite for Econ 50 and 50Q is now Math 20. You may fulfill the Math 20 requirement via AP exams or other standardized tests according to university policy; however, if the Stanford math placement test places you into Math 19 or Math 20, even if you have a high AP score, I would highly recommend that you get a solid grade in Math 20 before taking Econ 50.

There is no enforced math prerequisite beyond Math 20 for Econ 50Q; it’s up to you to determine if you feel comfortable enough with multivariable calculus to take it. If you find it’s too much, you can always switch to Econ 50 during the add/drop period. But you should definitely not take it if you haven’t seen any multivariable calculus before; for example, you shouldn’t take it concurrently with Math 51 or CME 100, since we’ll be building on the tools developed in those courses from the very beginning of the quarter. You probably also don’t want to take Econ 50Q if you struggled on the multivariable calculus parts of Math 51 (as opposed to the linear algebra parts).

See this page for additional guidance on which one you should register for, or feel free to come by my office hours and we can chat about which course is right for you.

Schedule

Unit 1: The Mathematics of Constrained Optimization (weeks 1-3)

• Week 1: Modeling preferences with multivariable calculus
• Week 2: Constrained optimization when calculus works
• Week 3: Constrained optimization when calculus doesn’t work
• Checkpoint 1: Monday, April 20

Unit 2: Consumer Theory

• Week 4: Consumer demand
• Week 5: Foundations of finance
• Checkpoint 2: Monday, May 4

Unit 3: Theory of the Firm

• Week 6: Production and cost
• Week 7: Profit maximization
• Checkpoint 3: Monday, May 18

Unit 4: Markets and Market Failures

• Week 8: Partial equilibrium
• Week 9: “When markets are inefficient: Externalities”
• Week 10: “When markets fail: Public goods”
• Final Exam: Friday, June 5, 3:30-6:30pm

Textbooks and Other Resources

• Required: We will use a set of interactive lecture notes that I have written specifically for this course. Links to each reading may be found on the course page, and will also be linked in the pre-class quizzes.
• Optional: Hal Varian, Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach. Any edition will do; the textbook hasn’t changed much in the 30 years since it was first published. This is a fuller explanation of a lot of the concepts we’ll cover; I’ll indicate which readings are most relevant for our class.
• Optional: UCSD Intermediate Microeconomics Video Handbook. These are being generously provided free of charge this quarter by UCSD! Go to https://econvideos.ucsd.edu and use your @stanford.edu email address to “buy” the IMVH for free. (Note: it’s a bit of clunky system, the confirmation email will come from “Design Brooklyn.”) I will post which videos are relevant to each class.
• Optional: I’ve created a Khan Academy course (link to be added) with math exercises from the first unit of class. These are three “unit tests” on univariate calculus, as well as a “quiz” on partial derivatives. Within each assessment are links to videos and other content reviewing the material. They absolutely do not count toward your grade, but they can offer you some extra practice as well as some great videos and other resources to help you learn the math required for this course. You may safely skip anything to do with trigonometry. 🙂

Class Meetings

Lectures

Lectures will be held Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 10:30am-12:20pm in 420-040.

Class will be in person. Please plan on attending all lectures, and please do not sign up for this class if it meets at the same time as another class. In general, recordings of lectures will not be available.

I have a strict no-electronics policy. Using electronics is distracting both for you and for those around you. Please not take your phone or laptop out during class, unless we’re doing a PollEv. See below for rules about tablets.

Because you can’t use electronics, please come prepared to take notes on paper. If you must take notes on a tablet, you must sit in the front of the class, so that it’s clear that you’re taking notes and not doing other things and distracting those around you (not to mention me…and yes, it’s blindingly obvious when you are watching a movie on your iPad, even if you think you’re being subtle).

My goal with all of this is not to be draconian, but to create an environment that is as conducive to learning as possible. I’ll do everything I can to make the class worthy of your attention; thanks for doing your part in keeping us in a “good equilibrium.”

Sections

Sections will be held Wednesdays and Thursdays. Sections are used to hone skills, go over old exam questions, and answer questions in small-group settings. I also use them to bridge the material in Wednesday’s lecture and Friday’s lecture. Material presented in section is fair game for homework and exams; in fact, I often use problems from section as the basis for exam questions.

You’ll sign up for a section in Axess, but you are welcome to attend a different section if you need to and there’s room in the classroom. Students in 50Q may attend an Econ 50 section in addition to the 50Q section for weeks in which they want to solidify the core material from lecture in addition to delving a bit more into more quantitative approaches.

Graded Work

Grading in this course is done in absolute terms, not relative. It is possible for the entire class to earn A’s. (It is also possible for the entire class to earn B’s or C’s.) A spreadsheet will be provided to help you determine your grade in the class.

Pre-Lecture Quizzes (5% of your grade)

Each chapter will have a short quiz, delivered via Canvas, to help you “check your understanding” from the main concepts from the reading.

• Purpose: help you arrive in class fully prepared to absorb the material
• Due: 15 minutes before each lecture
• Scoring: percent of questions answered correctly, plus 20 percentage points (capped at 100; so 80% or above becomes 100%).
• Honor Code: You may work with other students on these quizzes. However, the questions will often be randomized, so be sure you’re answering your own question!

Class Participation (5% of your grade)

We will use PollEverywhere several times per class. This is both to help you gauge how well you’re following the material, and to help me understand whether I should speed up or slow down.

• Purpose: help you check your understanding of class material, and give an incentive to stay focused during class
• Scoring: percent of questions answered correctly, plus 20 percentage points (capped at 100; so 80% or above becomes 100%)
• Honor Code: it is a violation of the Honor Code to answer a PollEverywhere question if you are not physically in class. From time to time I will put up a question and tell those in the room to answer it in a certain way, to detect cheating.

Note: You must be logged into PollEverywhere using your Stanford account to get credit for your in-class questions. I strongly recommend using the PollEverywhere app on your phone, rather than logging in each time – otherwise you may have trouble logging in and not be able to answer questions. If you have consistent problems logging on, please contact Classroom Technology Support.

Homework (25% of your grade)

There will be ten problem sets, generally on Saturday night and covering the week’s lectures.

• Purpose: Each problem set is meant to reinforce the material from lecture. Staying on track means completing an average of just over 2 exercises per lecture, though more exercises will be provided for extra practice. Doing these exercises is how most of your learning occurs: the questions are often challenging, and are designed to help you deepen your understanding. Problem sets also include old exam questions.
• Due dates: The official due date is Saturday night at 11pm, but you may hand in work at any time until 8am Sunday morning. The last two assignments have slightly different due dates, because of Memorial Day and the end of the class partway through Week 10; for these as well, you may upload your assignment anytime until 8am the morning after the homework is due. After 8am the morning after the due date, solutions will be posted and no additional work will be accepted. Upload whatever you have on Saturday night before you go to sleep, even if you plan on waking up early to complete it…people oversleep!

• Scoring: The scoring is set up to encourage you to do at least some work every week, and not be too stressed about getting 100% of things correct. Again, the main point of the problem sets is for you to learn the material.

  • I will give you many problems so that you can practice with them, but you do not need to complete all problems. Each problem on a problem set is worth 3 points. Think of the scoring as “check-plus (3), check (2), check-minus (1).”

  • Your grade on the problem set is the number of points you earn, not the percentage you get correct. You may earn a maximum of 12 points per problem set. If you earn more than 12 points, your score is capped at 12; this is to prevent people from trying to “bank” lots of points and then skipping the whole second half of the class. (Yes, this happened in the past. Sigh.)

  • Full credit is given for 100 total points. Since there are 10 problem sets, this means you need to earn an average of 10 points per problem set. It also means you can miss up to two problem sets and still receive nearly full credit. However, note that it’s better to not skip problem sets altogether – it’s much better to get 5 points than 0!

  • Getting more than 100 total points does not help your grade; there is no extra credit for additional work done. Obviously, the more practice you get, the better your exam grades will be!

• Honor Code: You may work with other students on the problem sets, but you must upload your own work. Furthermore, you may not consult any old solution sets which may exist from past quarters or use AI. (Doing so actively hurts your exam grades!) Uploading or downloading problem sets to web sites such as CourseHero is a violation of the Honor Code.

Exams (65% of your grade)

There will be three “checkpoint” exams held on the Mondays of Weeks 4, 6, and 8, as well as a final exam on Friday, June 5 at 3:30-6:30pm.

• Purpose:
  • The purpose of the Checkpoint exams is to provide you an opportunity to solidify the material from each of the first three units, to give you practice taking exams, and to give you feedback as to whether you need to adjust your approach to the class. They are meant to be challenging learning experiences. Each is based only on the material from the preceding 2-3 weeks.
  • The purpose of the final exam is to evaluate how well you have mastered the material of the entire course. It is cumulative; all material is fair game. However, it will emphasize the material from the last 3 weeks of class. It will not be (quite) as challenging as the Checkpoint exams, though it will cover more material.
• Honor Code: All exams will be in person, closed-book and closed-note. You will be able to use a simple (non-graphing, non-programmable) calculator.
  • Scoring: Each question on each exam will be curved based on its difficulty. The grade you see on Gradescope will be the raw grade; the grade you see on Canvas will be the curved grade (i.e. the one we use to determine your grade in the class). Note that your exam performance is based on an absolute, not a relative, standard: it is possible for everyone in the class to get an A on a test (and also possible for everyone to get a C). The 65% of your grade based on exams is broken down as follows:
  • Final exam: 35% of your grade
  • Highest Checkpoint exam score: 20% of your grade
  • Second-highest Checkpoint exam score: 10% of your grade
  • Third-highest Checkpoint exam score: 0% of your grade (dropped)

Policy on Missed and Late Work

Quizzes

Because the purpose of quizzes is to prepare you for lecture, and the due date is just before lecture, there are no extensions on quizzes. However, I write some pretty tricky quiz questions, mostly because I want to alert you to what you’re really going to have to pay attention to in lecture. Since I don’t expect you to get 100% on the quiz grades, I add 20 percentage points to your overall quiz grade. (The grade is capped at 100%, so that anything above an 80% earns a perfect grade.)

Lectures

There is no concept of an “excused absence;” please do not email me letting me know you will be missing lecture. Since I know that people travel, get sick, etc., I add 20 percentage points to your PollEv score; essentially this means you get to miss four classes without it affecting your grade. (Again, your PollEv grade capped at 100%.)

If you are a student-athlete who will be missing more than four lectures traveling for your sport, please let me know, and I will adjust your participation score appropriately.

Homeworks

You may upload a problem set to Gradescope until 8am the morning after it is due. Beyond that, no extensions are given on any problem set, ever, for any reason. Fundamentally, I want you be working each week on that week’s material; extensions only lead to “homework debt” and falling farther behind. Remember that you don’t need to complete all problems each week; so just hand in whatever you have time to get to in any given week, and if one week you can’t do very many, be sure to do more the next. (This policy has been cleared with OAE; even if you have an OAE letter which would normally grant you extensions on homeworks, that’s not applicable to this course.)

Also, remember that you can submit partial work to Gradescope, and then re-upload more completed work; so it’s best to “save your work” by uploading a partially completed problem set early, so you don’t forget to upload it!

Exams

If you choose to not take a Checkpoint exam, the consequence is clear:

• If you miss one Checkpoint exam, that will be your dropped exam; the higher of the other two scores will count as 20% of your grade, and the lower will count as 10% of your grade.
• If you miss two Checkpoint exams, the one you take will count as 20% of your grade. The highest possible grade in the class will be a 90%.
• If you miss all three Checkpoint exams, there is no way for you to pass the class. Note that the third Checkpoint exam is on the Monday of Week 9, which is after the withdrawal deadline for the course; so if you missed the first two Checkpoints, and there’s a chance you might miss the third one as well, you should probably withdraw from the class by the deadline.

You may not choose to skip the Final exam. If you cannot take the Final exam due to illness or emergency, you may take an Incomplete in the class only if you meet the following criteria:

• You took at least two Checkpoint exams, AND
• Your average Checkpoint grade is a C or better, AND
• You have a (curved) score of at least 80% on your quiz and PollEv grades (so a raw score of at least 60%), AND
• Your homework score is at least 80 points

If you are an athlete traveling on Stanford business during an exam, you should arrange to have an official traveling with the team administer your test. Please fill out this form for each test you will have to miss.

Students whose summer jobs or internships require them to be off campus on the date of the final must arrange with their employer to have their exam proctored concurrently with the rest of the class. Please note that the only valid reasons to take an exam remotely are an internship and athletes who are traveling to compete for Stanford. No other exceptions will be granted. So, for example, if you have a family wedding/birthday/graduation that requires you to travel on the date of the final, please take the course in another quarter. Note that “I already bought a plane ticket home that leaves before the final, and it would be prohibitively expensive to change it” is NOT a valid reason to miss the final. For this reason, the syllabus posted on syllabus.stanford.edu has stated that the exam must be taken in person since it was posted weeks before the class began.

Prerequisites

Success in Econ 50 relies on a familiarity with economics and fluency with quantitative and graphical analysis. Axess is programmed such that you will not be able to register in Econ 50 until you have completed the prerequisites.

• Econ 1 is a strict prerequisite for this course – you must have taken it before this quarter to enroll in Econ 50, not concurrently. If you have 5’s on both the Micro and Macro AP tests, or 7’s on the economics IB tests, or if you took a similar course at a different University, you may request an Econ 1 waiver using this link. Please note that “I did really well in my High School econ class but didn’t take the AP/IB” is not a valid reason to ask for a waiver; sorry. :(

• Math 20 is also a strict prerequisite for this course; like Econ 1, you must have taken it before this quarter to enroll in Econ 50, not concurrently. There are various AP tests which allow you to place out of Math 20; see this page for a list of acceptable ways to fulfill this requirement. If you took an equivalent course to Math 20 at another university before arriving at Stanford, you may request transfer credit using this form.

• Some students found a loophole in the past by requesting a waiver for one of the prerequisites while conveniently failing to mention they didn’t meet the other. This is a very bad move, and you will be dropped from the class if we discover you have done this. Please be sure you have satisfied both of the prerequisites before registering for the course.

Course Technology

We will use this page as the main course hub; you’ll find readings, homeworks, and links to quizzes here.

We will use Canvas reading quizzes, posting old exams, and for all official (curved) grade postings.

We will use Gradescope for all written work. Links for each assignment will be available on the problem set page, or you can navigate directly to Gradescope. You will be automatically enrolled in Gradescope; there is no need for a code. We will sync the roster before each of the first few assignments.

Please use Ed Discussions to ask any questions related to course content. This ensures that I can answer questions for the entire class, and don’t end up replying to a ton of identical emails. Please also answer student questions in Ed Discussions – that’s a great way to help your fellow students and learn the material better. I also consider responses in Ed Discussions when evaluating students who ask for letters of recommendation or who apply to become TAs.

Class Culture and Values

All members of the Econ 51 community fully belong in this class, and will be treated as such.

The relevance that economics has is not limited to any one group of individuals: as economists, we strive to understand the world as it is, and to use those insights to find solutions that improve everyone’s lives. Therefore, to be successful economists fundamentally requires seeking to understand and empathize with people from all backgrounds, perspectives, and situations. The diversity that you as students bring to this class, in all dimensions, is a resource we will continually draw on. To that end, I hope you will both share your perspective and listen respectfully to others’ perspectives, especially when they differ from your own – we learn very little by only hearing voices which are exactly like ours!

One fundamental pillar of respect is addressing people the way they would like to be addressed. I would encourage you to use the feature of Canvas that allows you to record your name and, if you wish, to share the pronouns by which you prefer to be referred. I and the other members of the teaching team will do our best to pronounce your name correctly, and refer to you with your preferred pronouns; and that feature is a great way to communicate those preferences to us.

If you ever feel that I or any other member of the teaching team is disrespecting you or anyone else in the class, please bring this to my attention immediately.

Stanford University Honor Code and the Fundamental Standard

The Honor Code and Fundamental Standard are integral parts of this course. In the context of the course, this means two things:

Handing in other’s work as your own is a violation of the Honor Code. Therefore, asking a human friend to do your homework for you is a violation of the Honor Code. So is asking a robot friend. More importantly, the whole purpose of the homework is to prepare you for the exams; this is why I call them homework “exercises.” Having someone else do your exercises for you is a little like having someone else do push-ups for you; technically, the push-ups get done, but you are no stronger for it. The results will come through on an exam.

Homework solution sets are provided to help you understand your mistakes. Old solution sets should not be used in helping you do your homework. Uploading solution sets to third-party web sites such as CourseHero is a violation of the Honor Code.

Copying work on exams is a serious offense. To reduce the temptation to do so, we have two versions of each exam which are different in subtle ways. Submitting answers to an exam which is not your own is a serious Honor Code violation and will result in an immediate referral to OCS.

Students with Documented Disabilities or Extenuating Circumstances

Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Office of Accessible Education (OAE). Professional staff will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is being made. Please contact the OAE (phone: 723-1066, online at http://oae.stanford.edu) as soon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations.

Generally speaking, OAE accommodations in the context of this course mean extended time on exams, as extensions on problem sets are never allowed beyond the point when solutions have been posted. Once you have an OAE letter, we will provide you with a link to upload it.

In order to accommodate all students effectively, there is a strict deadline of two weeks before any exam to submit your OAE letter.

In addition, we know that anyone might face unforeseen challenges at any time, causing them to miss work or class time. If this happens to you, please email Professor Makler; we will be flexible and work with you on a plan to get the most out of the class, regardless of whether you have an OAE letter or not.

Economics Department Common Syllabus

Beyond the specifics outlined above, all courses taught in the Stanford Department of Economics are governed by a common set of course management rules. The Economics Common Syllabus explaining these rules is on the Economics Department website at this link. The Department does not allow me to grant exceptions to these rules.