Economics for Business and Management aims to introduce students to the essential aspects of the economic environment within which individuals and businesses operate. It will provide an introduction to the characteristics of economic decision-making by individuals and businesses, the central issues of business strategy from an economic perspective, and the key aspects of how businesses operate within and interact with the macroeconomy.

This paper will help you to understand and cope with the diverse economic problems that you might encounter as a business manager.

IMPORTANT: Although ECONS101(HAM) is offered as a FLEXI paper, FLEXI assessment is only available to students who are physically unable to attend on-campus. Students who want to complete FLEXI assessment will need to make an application to do so. The application form is available on the ECONS101 Moodle page. Other than in exceptional circumstances, only applications that are received by Monday 6 March will be considered.

We strongly believe that your learning will be greatly enhanced and your experience of the paper will be more positive if you complete the paper on-campus. As we will note in the first lecture, based on data from recent trimesters, students who attend on-campus do substantially better than students who do not. To encourage attendance, extra credit for the some assessments is only available in-person at lectures.

Lectures

The paper is taught through lectures (3 hours per week), and tutorials (1 or 2 hours per week). Lectures are recorded and made available via Panopto for you to refer to later.

Tutorials

All students should attend one tutorial session each week. These sessions are conducted by tutors who are senior students. Tutorials normally include revision of lecture material, and exemplar questions for the tests. The tutors will be available to assist students in completing these tutorial questions and to answer any other questions about the topic.

Students may select a tutorial time by clicking on the Tutorial signup link near the top of the ECONS101 Moodle page. Tutorial signup opens in the second half of enrolment week. Please select a tutorial time as soon as possible, to avoid missing out on your preferred time. Two-hour tutorial groups are provided for those students who have not studied economics before, and offer additional time to cover basic concepts in addition to the regular tutorial material.

Please note that tutorial times are subject to the availability of tutors, so some tutorial times that are listed in the online timetable may not be available.
All tutorials will only be offered on-campus. Tutorials will not be recorded.

You should print out the tutorial sheet, and attempt each tutorial question before your tutorial session begins. At each tutorial session, one question will be selected at random by the tutor. Only students who have attempted the selected question before the tutorial will receive full credit for tutorial completion.

FLEXI tutorials

Students who have been approved for FLEXI assessment (see above) must complete the tutorials in their own time. For feedback and credit for tutorial completion, FLEXI students must email their tutorial answers to the lecturer (mcam@waikato.ac.nz) by Wednesday 3pm each week. Files should preferably be sent in pdf format or as good quality photos from a mobile phone. The lecturer or tutor will then email comments and feedback to each student directly.

Other notes on structure

The paper is supported online through Moodle, and the class has its own Facebook group, which you are encouraged to join and participate in.

We have contingencies in place should any assessment, lecture or tutorial be affected by a nationwide or localised lockdown, or in the case of staff or students being unwell and/or isolating at home. You should regularly check the announcements on Moodle or the class Facebook group, in case any changes have been made.

The CORE team. (n.d.). The Economy.

This book is a free e-book that can be accessed at http://www.core-econ.org/the-economy/index.html and can be downloaded as an app from the Google Play Store (for Android devices) or the Windows Store (for Windows 10 devices) (an iOS version will be released soon). The book was developed by a team of highly-respected professors, and is currently being used at University College London, Sciences Po (Paris), the Toulouse School of Economics, Azim Premji University (Bangalore), Humboldt University (Berlin), the Lahore University of Management Sciences and many other universities throughout the world.

We also occasionally use readings from some other textbooks. These are linked from Moodle.

The best way to learn economics is to apply it in a variety of real-world situations. Michael Cameron's Sex, Drugs and Economics blog has regular posts that show you how economics applies in the real world. You can search his past posts for topics relevant to your learning (use the search box, or the labels on the right of the blog). Links to relevant posts to help with your learning will also be posted to the class Facebook group.