40430 - Notions of Economics

Academic Year 2018/2019

  • Docente: Anna Soci
  • Credits: 10
  • SSD: SECS-P/01
  • Language: Italian
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Social Work (cod. 8040)

Learning outcomes

The final outcome is a satisfactory degree of knowledge of the basic topics in Economics: the market, the demand and supply forces, the notion of equilibrium, the formation of the national product, the rules of distribution, the main actions of the State in its role of a transferring agent, and the most relevant policies available for the control of the economic system.

Course contents

The structure of the course is such as to provide students the main concepts in Economics, without a specialistic focus. This is why we will insist only on Macroeconomics after an initial overview of the standard, basic, and general economic concepts.
The syllabus is:
1) the market: demand, supply and equilibrium;
2) gross domestic product and growth;
3) business cycles, labour market, inflation;
4) aggregate demand and aggregate supply;
5) main elements of fiscal policy and balance budget;
6) money, banking system and main elements of monetary policy.

Readings/Bibliography

Stanley L. Brue - Campbell R. McConnell - Sean M. Flynn, Essential of Economics; McGraw Hill, 2010. Further teaching facilities (the slides of the lectures, graphs, tables, in-depth focus, readings suggestion) will be available on-line just following the class.

Teaching methods

Traditional class-lectures articulated into six weekly hours, plus weekly tutorials.

Assessment methods

The final examination is a written examination with a multiple-choices structure (24 questions), and the evaluation is expressed into thirties, from 18 to 30. An honour mark (lode) is possible. The aim is at assessing the achievement of a reasonable knowledge of the topics as well as of an ability of dealing with them substantially together with some capacity of interpreting the main features of the economic reality.
A mid-term examination - which will be part of the total evaluation - is available only for the students attending the class. Students can refuse a positive evaluation of their exam with a written communication to the teacher. In order to make this choice operative the electronic registration will be done by the teacher on the day after the results have become public on-line.
The registration for participating in the exams must have an electronic form only. In order to avoid possible technical problems, students are recommended to print and save their enrollment. In fact, no one can participate in the exam without being registered in advance.

Teaching tools

In addition to the 60 hours teaching, the array of teaching facilities is the following;
1) the presence of a tutor for in-depth focus and general tutorials;
2) two weekly hours by the tutor;
3) six office-hours weekly by the teacher;
4) two office-hours weekly by the tutor;
5) a prospective seminar by an external scholar.

Links to further information

http://www.unibo.it/docenti/anna.soci

Office hours

See the website of Anna Soci