Eco 111: Principles of Economics II: Macroeconomics
Contents
General Education Statement for Eco 111
Eco 111 is a General Education course in the Social Sciences category.
All general
education courses have the following characteristics:
1. They offer explicit understanding of the procedures and practices of disciplines
and interdisciplinary fields.
2. They provide multiple perspectives on the subject matter, reflecting the
intellectual and cultural diversity within and beyond the University.
3. They emphasize active learning in an engaged environment that enables students
to become producers as well as consumers of knowledge.
4. They promote critical thinking about the assumptions, goals, and methods
of various fields of academic study and the interpretive, analytic, and evaluative
competencies central to intellectual development.
As a group, courses satisfying the general education social science requirement
focus on the interaction of social, economic, political, geographic, linguistic,
religious and/or cultural factors, with emphasis on the ways humans understand
the complex nature of their existence. These courses have the common learning
objectives that students be able to demonstrate:
1. an understanding that human conduct and behavior more generally are subject
to scientific inquiry;
2. an understanding of the difference between rigorous and systematic thinking
and uncritical thinking about social phenomena;
3. an understanding of the kinds of questions social scientists ask and the
ways they go about answering these questions;
4. knowledge of the major concepts, models and issues of at least one discipline
in the social sciences; and
5. an understanding of the methods social scientists use to explore social phenomena,
such as observation, hypothesis development, measurement and data collection,
experimentation, evaluation of evidence, employment of mathematical analysis,
employment of interpretive analysis.
The introductory economics courses (Eco 110 and 111) have several specific
learning objectives. Students completing the courses should:
1. understand the economic issues and problems faced by individuals, organizations
and society;
2. understand the economic principles that help explain behavior and the range
of institutions that affect the allocation of resources; and
3. be able to apply methods of economic analysis (e.g., supply and demand) to
behavior and social phenomena.
These specific objectives are closely linked to the General Education social science objectives. By focusing on the fundamental economic issues and problems faced by individuals and society, the courses will provide students an understanding of the issues central to Economics. In emphasizing the process of applying economic concepts and principles, the courses help students understand and gain facility in applying the "economic way of thinking". Students will see how economists use this approach and various economic models to study human behavior. The emphasis on the rigorous modeling of behavior and the distinction between positive and normative analyses underscore the centrality of scientific inquiry in Economics.
[August 2004]