ECON10001: Economics

2021/22 Unit Handbook

Teaching team

Dr Annika Johnson (Unit Director) Mr Gervas Huxley

Dr Christian Spielmann (Unit Director) Dr Jahir Islam
Dr Khansa Al-Sabah Mr Sudeep Jain
Dr Ruth Badru Ms Anastasia Papadopolou
Prof. Richard Davies Dr Muhammad Rahman
Dr Danielle Guizzo Dr Lily Samkharadze
Dr Simon Halliday Ms Oyku Ulusoy
Dr Yunzi He Dr Melisa Williams

How to Contact Us

There are a number of ways to contact the teaching team including on the discussion board and in office
hours. You can find details on all the different ways under ‘Contact Us’ on the unit Blackboard page and you
should read it very carefully (note you will need to log in to Blackboard before the link will work).

You can also find email addresses for all the teaching team on the same link. As a general rule, all questions
about the unit should be asked on the discussion board, during lectures/class/workshops or in office hours.
Of course, if your question is more sensitive or personal, then sending an email may be more appropriate. If
you email, you should ensure you send it from your university email address otherwise the academic staff
member you have emailled may not be able to reply.

Contents
Unit description ......................................................................................................................................................... 2
Textbook and Important Resources .......................................................................................................................... 3
Learning Methods ...................................................................................................................................................... 5
Assessment ................................................................................................................................................................ 6
Unit Schedule............................................................................................................................................................. 8
Unit description

This unit provides an analytical introduction to the core concepts and tools of modern economics. Starting
from historical and cross-country comparisons, students will learn the role economic analysis can play in
understanding different dimensions of modern economies.

The unit covers the behaviour of economic actors in the goods, labour and credit market and analyses how
institutions and policy shape economic outcomes. It shows when markets can successfully organise
economic activity and discusses under which circumstances they fail to do so. The unit will also study the
determination of key economic variables such as GDP, unemployment, inequality and inflation as well as
aspects of monetary and fiscal policy and the global economy.

The unit draws on empirical data, graphical and mathematical models as well as historically and
methodologically informed narrative and students will use all of these to analyse and discuss relevant
economic questions and ideas and communicate them to specialist and non-specialist audiences. After
studying this unit, students will have the appropriate foundational economics knowledge in order to
successfully, and without undue difficulties, master more advanced units in subsequent years.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

[1] to understand and make appropriate use of graphical and mathematical models as well as
historically and methodologically informed narrative to explain economic behaviour as well as current
and past events in economics

[2] to discuss a wide variety of economic situations by analysing the objectives and constraints of
various decision makers (including individuals, households, firms, communities, unions, governments)

[3] to be able to explain and use important micro and macroeconomic concepts

[4] to describe empirical regularities and make economic judgements based on simple data analysis

[5] to explain the contributions that economic analysis can make to addressing some problems of
current concern such as inequality, poverty, unemployment, pollution, climate change

[6] to appropriately communicate economics to expert and non-expert audiences

[7] work collaboratively to practice and improve their economic skills and outputs
Textbook and Important Resources

UNIT TEXTBOOK: THE ECONOMY

The course textbook is The Economy, CORE (2017). It is available as a free, online e-book here.

The e-book includes many videos, interactive diagrams and other resources which will help you study the
material. Reading the material is absolutely crucial to success in this unit. Just listening to lectures is not
enough to progress through the unit successfully.

Note there are also other resources, and some editions in other languages which you can access on the
main core econ website here.

TIP: For those who use screen readers, you may find the downloadable e-book more convenient. You can
find this under ‘Download the app or epub for offline access’ here.

Want to know more about the book?

Here at Bristol, you will study economics at one of the country’s leading institutions. In our economics
degree, we have adopted a novel way of teaching introductory economics using the COREecon material. The
resources created by the CORE project team (including academics at Bristol, Oxford, UCL and other
prominent institutions across the world) are in response to the criticism about how economics has been
taught over recent decades. All the models and tools presented are motivated by what we actually observe
in reality. It is based on some of the latest and most prominent research within the field of economics and
adopts an effective and modern pedagogical approach to teaching.

If you want to know more, then watch this video from our Bristol Talks Economics series where students
from Bristol’s Economics, Finance and Management society interview a key leader in the Core Project.

UNIT BLACKBOARD PAGE

All the teaching material, contact info, assessment submissions etc. for this unit will be available on the
Blackboard pages for this unit (you will need to log in to Blackboard before the link will work). Each week, you
should check ‘Learning Materials’ for the weekly guide to the unit and ‘Announcements’ for important weekly
reminders. The announcements will also be automatically sent to your university email.
DISCUSSION BOARD

This unit uses a unit discussion board on EdStem. You can access it via Blackboard here (you will need to log in
to Blackboard before the link will work). You should use the discussion board to ask questions, answer questions
and discuss unit content with your peers. The teaching team will also keep an eye on the discussion board and
reply every few days.

TIP: Make it easy for your questions to be understood and answered. Specify (i) exactly which section of which
lecture/book/article etc. you are writing about and (ii) what you have tried so far to tackle the problem. The
easier you make it for people to help you, the better a response you will get.

NOTE: You are welcome to use the discussion board to discuss questions with your peer out of hours, but note
that the teaching team will not reply outside of hours, including weekends

IMPORTANT: You should remember that although the discussion board may look similar to social media sites, it
is a professional space for professional communication and your language should reflect this. Any inappropriate
conduct will be reported to the university.

FINANCIAL TIMES AND THE ECONOMIST

In this unit we will regularly use material from these publications for discussion. You have free access to these
provided by the university. Make sure you complete the ‘Week 0: Preparing to Start’ modules on the unit
Blackboard page to learn how to access these (you will need to log in to Blackboard before the link will work).

MICROSOFT OFFICE

In this unit, and throughout your wider programme, you will need to use a range of Microsoft Office tools (eg.
Excel, Teams, Word). You have free access to these provided by the university. Some have useful online versions
of the tools but it is strongly recommended for this unit that you download Microsoft Excel as it has greater
functionality than the online version. Make sure you complete the ‘Week 0: Preparing to Start’ modules on the
unit Blackboard page to learn how to do this (you will need to log in to Blackboard before the link will work).
Learning Methods

Each week there are a number of activities and classes to attend. They are briefly described in the list below.
Note that you will need to log in to Blackboard before any of the links will work for you.

ASYNCHRONOUS MATERIAL AND PREP

Each week, the weekly guide on Blackboard will indicate the asynchronous material you need to complete
before lectures or seminars. This can range from reading (eg. textbook chapters / academic articles/ news
articles) to walkthrough videos (eg. to explain a mathematical derivation) to questions you need to attempt in
your own time, before a live session. It’s important you try to engage with this material to get the most out of
the course. The material in these asynchronous activities can be included in the various assessments.

LECTURES

There is a 2-hour, online lecture each week which takes places with everyone on this unit. It can be accessed via
‘Live Sessions’ on Blackboard. These sessions will be used to explore particularly important aspects of the
reading and aspects and applications beyond the main text. To take part in these sessions you will find it useful
to have some means of taking notes (on paper or otherwise). If possible, you might also find a second device
(eg. a smartphone) useful for taking part in questions and polls, particularly if you are watching the lecture in a
group with others.

SEMINARS

Each week you have a 2-hour, face to face session which takes place on campus with your seminar group. You
can find the time and room for your seminar on your timetable. There will often be work to prepare for these
sessions and this will be indicated in the weekly guide on Blackboard. Attendance is registered in seminars.

IMPORTANT: Note that since these sessions are face to face, you are expected to follow the university guidance
on wearing masks and social distancing.

Note: If you are not yet in Bristol and are studying remotely, for this session you should attend the ‘Online
Seminar’ in the timetable. You can find the link under ‘Live Sessions’.

Your tutor for this session is also your academic personal tutor, so at different points in the year they will also
run sessions with you on different aspects of academic life (eg. assessment, plagiarism, employability) to help
you succeed on the degree programme.

Q&A WORKSHOPS (OPTIONAL)

We know that sometimes at the end of class there can be some questions you still have, or you want to practice
doing something again or writing up an answer to a question etc. and it would be helpful to be able to discuss
this with a smaller group and your tutor. That’s why this year we’ve introduced Q&A Workshops (‘Workshops’)
on your timetable. These are optional, group sessions which take place online and we’ve added them to your
timetable to make sure you and your tutor are available at the same time. Your tutor will suggest how best to
use this time each week, based on the current topic. You can find the link to these sessions and sign-up sheet
under ‘Live Sessions’ on Blackboard.

ADVICE AND FEEDBACK / OFFICE HOURS (OPTIONAL)

Everyone who teaches in the School of Economics holds 2 hours of ‘office hours’ or ‘advice and feedback’ hours
each week. These are not unit-specific, but are open to all students across all the courses they are teaching. You
can use this time to ask questions about course material, but also about personal tutor matters too. You can find
the details of office hours for tutors on this unit under ‘Contact Us’ on the unit Blackboard page. Some tutors
will run office hours in person, some online and some as a mixture of the two. You can find those details and
times for these on the Contact Us page.
Assessment

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT

In this unit we use ‘summative assessment’ to mean assessment which is graded and counts towards your final
mark for the unit. There are 3 elements to summative assessment in this unit:

1. Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ) (15%)

These are short, multiple-choice tests which take place online, weekly, starting from Week 5 (see
Course Schedule). They consist of 6 questions to be completed in 30 minutes and focus on the reading,
asynchronous work, lectures and seminars in the previous week (although since the content builds each
week, you may see references to earlier material too).

There is a 48-hour window to complete each test and you can choose when to complete it as long as it is
submitted before the deadline. You can view the results and feedback 90 minutes after the deadline has
passed.

Each term there are 8 MCQ tests to complete and the top 5 marks from your 8 tests will count 7.5%
towards your final mark for this unit (note you will receive a mark of 0 for any tests which you do not
attempt). There is also the opportunity to complete a practice test in Week 4 so that you can familiarise
yourself with how the MCQ tests work.

IMPORTANT: So that everyone can access their feedback in a timely manner, there are no extensions
for the weekly MCQ tests. We know that there is a lot to adjust to in the first year of university and that
there may be circumstances arising which occasionally cause you to miss a test. This is partly why we
give you a 48-hour window to complete the test and only count your best 5 marks in each term.

However, if you have any issues which are regularly affecting your studies and your ability to complete 5
tests in the term, then you should speak to the economics senior tutor team (econ-
ugseniortutor@bristol.ac.uk) to discuss your case. They may recommend you complete an extenuating
circumstances form so that the exam board can take your circumstances into account. You can find
more details about extenuating circumstance on your programme page on Blackboard (eg. Economics
(BSc) or Economics and Mathematics (BSc).)

IMPORTANT: If you are entitled to extra time in exams, please get in touch with the Economics
undergraduate office (econ-ug@bristol.ac.uk) as soon as possible to ask for the extra time to be added
to your profile. This may take time, so it is important you do it well in advance of Week 5.

If you are unsure whether you are entitled to extra time, you can find more general information on
alternative exam arrangements here.

2. Coursework Project (35%)

The coursework project is a written piece of work (approximately 1500 words) which you complete over
the course of the first term and is due in Week 12 (end of the first term). It’s important you make the
most of all the formative assessment opportunities (see below) to make sure you are well prepared to
write this assessment.

IMPORTANT: The Faculty of Social Science and Law has a strict late penalty policy which applies to your
coursework project. If the coursework is handed in after the deadline, without a pre-arranged extension
then the work will be subject to the following penalty:
 o A fixed penalty of 10 marks is applied for each working day (whether this is a few minutes or a
few hours past the deadline) work is submitted after the agreed submission deadline.
o A mark of zero is applied to work submitted five or more working days after the agreed deadline
if this threshold is not already reached.

3. Exam (50%)

The exam takes place in the summer assessment period at the end of the year and is 90 minutes long.
More details and a sample exam will be released in the second term to help you prepare for this
assessment.

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

In this unit we use ‘formative assessment’ to mean work which you complete and receive feedback on, but any
grades given do not affect your final unit grade. This work is to help you improve your abilities as an economist
and to help you prepare for any summative assessment.

Note that feedback can come in many forms. Some work will receive written feedback, but you also receive
feedback from your peers and tutors when you discuss work in class. You can also discuss aspects of your work
in the Q&A workshops and office hours if you choose to use them.

As well as any formative work you do in class, there are three pieces of formative assessment which you are
asked to formally submit through the unit Blackboard page:

1. Formative 1: Video Challenge Project

This is a group project you do with others in your seminar group, starting in Week 1. This not only gives
you the opportunity to get to know others in your group, but also to start practicing the different
communication styles required of modern economists, including the communication of complex ideas to
non-expert economist audiences such as business leaders or government ministers. Since this is also
required in your summative assessments, it is important to start practicing it early. Your seminar tutor
will give you more information about this in your Week 1 seminar. This work is due in Week 3.

Note: You must submit this piece of work and achieve a passing grade (>40%) in order to pass this unit.

2. Formative 2: Writing about economic models

This is a short, written piece of work is designed to help you practice writing about economics models
before starting your summative coursework. The mark for this is for guidance only and does not directly
affect your final mark for the coursework. It will be released in Week 4 and is due in Week 6.

You do not have to submit this work to pass the unit, but it is strongly recommended as it is connected
to your summative coursework.

3. Formative 3: Practice for final exam

This written piece of work is designed to help you prepare for the final exam. It is due in Week 22. The
mark for this is for guidance only and does not directly affect your exam mark.

You do not have to submit this work to pass the unit, but it is strongly recommended as it is connected
to your final exam.
Unit Schedule

The table below gives an overview of the main topics, reading and assessment for the year. The details were
correct at the time of publication but note there may be changes from time to time. These changes will be
announced via Blackboard so make sure you read the weekly updates (either via your email or ‘Announcements’
on the unit Blackboard page.

Week Key Textbook

Week Topic Assessment
commencing Chapters
WELCOME WEEK
0 20/09/2021 n/a
(no live sessions)
1,2
1 27/09/2021 n/a
001: Big Changes, Big Questions
2 04/10/2021 n/a
3 11/10/2021 Formative 1 Due
Teaching Block 1 (TB1)

002: Choices and Constraints 3

4 18/10/2021 Practice MCQ
5 25/10/2021 003: Power and Strategy MCQ Test 1
READING WEEK Formative 2 Due
6 01/11/2021 4,5
(no live sessions) MCQ Test 2
7 08/11/2021 MCQ Test 3
8 15/11/2021 MCQ Test 4
004: Power, Strategy and the Firm 7, 8, 11.3
9 22/11/2021 MCQ Test 5
10 29/11/2021 MCQ Test 6
005: Power, Strategy and Labour 6,9
11 06/12/2021 MCQ Test 7
Coursework Due
12 13/12/2021 Review and Revision
MCQ Test 8
CHRISTMAS BREAK
JANUARY EXAM PERIOD
(Note there is no exam in this period for this unit)
13 24/01/2022 No live sessions
14 31/01/2022 006: Governments: Market Failure n/a
12, 19
15 07/02/2022 and Inequality n/a
16 14/02/2022 Practice MCQ
Teaching Block 2 (TB2)

007: Macro Indicators 11, 13, 18

17 21/02/2022 MCQ Test 9
18 28/02/2022 MCQ Test 10
008: Fiscal Policy 13, 14
19 07/03/2022 MCQ Test 11
20 14/03/2022 MCQ Test 12
21 21/03/2022 MCQ Test 13
009: Monetary Economics 10, 11, 15, 17
Formative 2 Due
22 28/03/2022
MCQ Test 14
EASTER BREAK
23 25/04/2022 10, 11, 15, 17 MCQ Test 15
24 02/05/2022 Review and Revision MCQ Test 16

SUMMER EXAM PERIOD End of Unit Exam