ECON 120 Syllabus

Course Syllabus: 

2018 Fall Macroeconomics Online Werboff Syllabus.pdf

Meet Your Instructor:  I'm Ann Werboff, your instructor for this course. I've been teaching at Santa Ana for a few years both in person and online and I also teach at other community colleges and Cal State University. I think it is so important for everyone to have a basic understanding of how the economy works because so many political and social issues have an economic component to them. 

Course Description: Macroeconomics is an introduction to the science of economics emphasizing how national income, unemployment, inflation, and economic growth are determined. Additional topics covered: taxation, aggregate demand/aggregate supply model, money and banking, and business cycles. The effects of government policy on the economy will also be discussed.  Macroeconomic analysis focuses on the "large, economy‑wide aggregate, such as indicators of total economic activity”. 

Textbook Information:  We will be using an online free economics textbook through Openstax. The textbook materials are in the course website.

Course Objectives:

The British economist Alfred Marshall observed that, "economics is an engine of analysis." His famous student John Maynard Keynes later said that "economics is a way of thinking." The course will have achieved its objective upon its completion if you have acquired this logical system of thought. The objective of this course is to develop and apply the basic results and techniques of economic reasoning to the American economy and globalization.

Critical thinking skills that are required throughout the course include analysis, logical reasoning, comparison, evaluation, problem-solving, and prediction.  Appropriate vocabulary, math and graphing skills are used as students apply economic concepts to examples from daily life and business.

Student Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

• Identify and explain the fundamental economic problem of allocating scarce resources and the role of positive economics in explaining choices.
• Communicate using basic economic terminology, interpret relevant economic data, and follow and construct fundamental economic arguments.
• Apply analytical reasoning and problem-solving skills to model cause-and-effect relationships and formulate predictions at the aggregate economic level.
• Explain the processes through which a market system allocates scarce resources at the aggregate level and analyze the efficiency of and the effects of government policies on the resulting allocation.