Political Economics

Code:

CC016

Acronym:

ECOP

Instance: 2010/2011 - 1S

Active?	Yes
Responsible unit:	Department of Journalism and Communication Sciences
Course/CS Responsible:	Bachelor in Communication Sciences

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
CC	17	Plano Oficial a partir de 2008/2009	2	-	5	52	135

Teaching language

Portuguese

Objectives

This subjects aims to further look at the micro and macroeconomic instruments used by economists to analyse the performance of economy as a whole, an issue first raised in the Introduction to Economics course. Additionally, we intend to analyse the impact of public policies on the economy. Knowledge about the economic instruments will allow the discussion of some topics of macroeconomic policy.

Program

Ch. 1 Introduction
Ch. 2 Consumers, producers and market efficiency
Ch. 3 Externalities
3.1 Externalities and market inefficiency
3.2 Private solutions for externalities
3.3 Public policies for externalities
Ch. 4 Public assets and common resources
4.1 The different types of assets
4.2 Public assets
4.3 Common resources
Ch. 5 Corporate behaviour and organisation of industry
5.1 Productivity and production costs
5.2 Companies in competitive markets
5.3 Companies in imperfect markets
5.4 Analysis of government policies
Ch. 6 Production and growth
6.1 World economic growth
6.2 Productivity: role and determinants
6.3 Economic growth and public policies
Ch. 7 Savings, investment and financial system
Ch. 8 Discussions on macroeconomic policy

Teaching methods and learning activities

Theory-practical classes will be used to boost student participation. Additionally, the aim is to foster the discussion of issues that will be addressed in the individual research work.

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation with final exam

Assessment Components

Description	Type	Time (hours)	Weight (%)	End date
Attendance (estimated)	Participação presencial	52,00
	Exame	2,00
	Trabalho escrito	81,00
	Total:	-	0,00

Eligibility for exams

Mandatory attendance of 75% of classes, unless established otherwise by general law and in the FLUP Assessment Regulations.

Calculation formula of final grade

Continuous assessment: class discussion (5%); written issues (15%); homework (20%); mini-test (20%); test (40%)
Exam: classification of final test

The student’s final grade will the be highest score of the two options. In other words, students following the continuous assessment scheme will never be compromised, because if the final exam grade is higher than the average score obtained with the continuous assessment components, they will be awarded that grade and not the grade achieved in continuous assessment.

Observations

Samuelson, Nordhaus; Economia, 18ª edição portuguesa, MacGraw-Hill, 2005. ISBN: 8448146190
N. Gregory Mankiw;Introdução à Economia, Editora Campus, 2001. ISBN: 8535208534

Other literature will be indicated in the course of classes.