ECO203-Written Assignment 2-3 pages

The objectives are twofold: improve writing, and demonstrate research skills. Your paper must have a clearly defined objective. The research component requires that you specify a methodology to accomplish your objective. You must provide a section on “literature review” where you can quote other works on the same topic. Provide a “Reference” section at the end of your paper with at least 3 references including reference to a scholarly book or a scholarly journal. Below are some suggested topics:

• Topic #1: The Internet: How is it Changing the Economy?
• Topic #2: School choice: Can it Improve the Quality of Education in America?
• Topic #3: Earnings Differences between Men and Women
• Topic #4: Do Labor Unions increase the Wages of Workers?
• Topic #5: Are we running out of Resources?
• Topic #6: Difficult Environmental Cases and the Role of Government.
• Topic #7: Choose a product of your interest, identify the product with a market (Perfect Competition, Monopoly, Oligopoly and Monopolistic Competition), their role in the market, their future in the competitive world, any suggestions you have for this product with regard to advertisement, labor dealings, manufacturing sector etc.

Pick any Microeconomic topic that most interests you, not necessarily the ones suggested above and write a short essay under the following conditions.

• The paper length is at least 3 pages of text. The focus is on quality rather than quantity. Graphs and tables will enhance the quality of your paper and may be part of an extended 5-pages limit; however, references and footnotes must go to the end of the essay.
• The structure of the paper is Introduction and Objective, Literature Review, Analysis, and Conclusions.
• The introduction should be just 1-2 paragraphs long and must contain the objective of your paper. It should explain why the topic is relevant and what is the research question.
• The literature review section is a review of similar works done by other authors. Here, you must quote references and link those references in alphabetic order at the end of your paper.
• The economic analysis section is your answer to the research question you set out to investigate. You should be able to use key microeconomic terms (TR, MR, MC, TP etc) to analyze the data and all information you have in the argument.
• Use APA style consistent with economic analysis. Visit the folowing sites for more information on APA style:

• APA.pdf (580 Kb)

• http://library.nu.edu/FindResources/ReferenceTools/citations.html

.

• To find the scholarly books or articles that you need for your paper (at least one), go to the following full text databases in NU Library: Business Source Premier (EBSCO), Emerald Management Xtra, LexisNexis Academic, ProQuest Databases and ProQuest Dissertations and Thesis. These databases are in
  • http://library.nu.edu/FindResources/ResourceFinder.cfm

  Databases have different sources or information, and you always have to combine them. Economists would say that databases are complements rather than substitutes, in other words, try more than one database.

• The conclusion should be useful to the reader and a policy maker dealing with such a topic. Be sure there is a strong connection between the introduction and the conclusion. You can also expand on the implications of your answer and predict something about the future.
• Use font Times New Roman, size 11-12 and double space.
• When ready, submit your assignment as a word document using the dropbox.
• Short papers are nice pieces of art. Your paper will be evaluated according to the following criteia (points are subject to grading scale used for the entire course).
  

  Written Assignment Grading Standards	Points
  Grammar, Punctuation, and Spelling	10%
  APA style for citations and no sign of plagiarism*	10%
  Clarity of objective, introduction, conclusion and strong connection between introduction and conclusion	30%
  Economic analysis using economic principles	30%
  Empirical evidence that supports economic analysis	10%
  Overall quality of conclusion	10%
  Total	100%

• If any plagiarism is detected in ypur paper, grade will be automatically zero. However, it may escalate to a more severe penalization. Consult the NU Catalog for more details on this to