Economics Access Course

Sylvain Barde

The rules of the game

Seminars

The marking system and the exercises

Purpose of the course

The seminars

14 weeks times 1 hour

Attendance to the seminars is compulsory Make sure you do the exercises each week Prepare questions on the points or the

reading that seem unclear Do not hesitate to ask questions during the

seminar The course outline and slides will be made

available on the ENTG

The seminars

During the first part of each hour we will:Go over the exercises from the previous

weekClarify points on which you had trouble

Make sure you prepare the exercises, they are part of the learning process !

The exercises to be prepared for each week will be given in the course outline

Module marks

The overall mark for the module is based on the seminar work you hand in: 2/3 given by the seminar marks 1/3 given by personal mark (attendance,

participation)

The average exercise mark (incentives!) : You are free to hand in exercises every week The mark is the average of your best 6 results If you hand in less than 6 exercises, then your

average takes in the extra 0’s needed to make up the 6 marks...

Economics Access Course

Introduction

Why economics contains so much maths

Why economics contains so much maths

Economics tries to understand the behaviour of agentsResources are limited, therefore agents

have to make choices.These depend on the incentives faced by the

agentBecause agents are different, they can

benefit from exchangeProducers and consumers therefore meet on

markets that ensure an efficient use of these resources

Why economics contains so much maths

The aim of economics if to answer the following questions:What to consume ? How much ?What to produce ? (Which good ?)How to produce it ? (Which technology ?)Why are some countries richer than others?Why do some countries have high

unemployment ? High inflation?

Why economics contains so much maths

In order to answer these questions and understand how agents make their decisions, economics models: The decision making process of the agent The flows of goods and services in the economy

We use models because it is impossible to understand directly the depth and complexity of human behaviour This is what we’ll examine next week when we

look at how models are used in science

Why economics contains so much maths

Example of Sir Arthur Lewis (Nobel prize 1979) on Dani Rodriks’ Blog

http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/09/why-we-use-math.html

There is an apparent paradox: « Maths are complicated » In fact, it’s a simplification !!

In other words, we use maths because we’re not intelligent enough to do without !!

Why economics contains so much maths

Mathematics allows us: To use a symbolic notation for all the variables

in a given problem.

To develop notations and rules that define logical relations (logical operations are “codified”)

As a result one can carry out a complex series of logical operations without making mistakes, forgetting variables, etc.

Why economics contains so much maths

Which types of mathematics do economists use ?

Algebra, mainly solving equations Part 2

Calculus, mainly analysing the properties of functions Part 3

Statistics Which we won’t see