Introduction

Professor: Noemí Navarro (Room2971 )
Office hours: Tuesdays 13:00-14:00

TA: Nikoleta Koleva
Office hours: Tuesday, 14:30-15:30

Textbook: Mankiw, G. (2004): Principles of Economics, 4rd edition. Thomson-Southwestern.

Objectives
This course represents the basic knowledge for subsequent study of microeconomic theory. Aside from being the first contact that you will have with economic theory, this course is quite extensive. The agenda is general enough and we will complement the topics in the book with readings taken from other sources that will be posted on the webpage during the course.

Course Grading
You will be evaluated throughout the semester on your class attendance and in-class participation. There will be a blackboard session with the TA each two weeks (seven blackboard sessions in total). At each of these sessions you must turn in your answers to the questions proposed as a homework in the previous session. These questions will be discussed during the blackboard session. If you fail to hand in three or more homeworks you will lose the corresponding 20% of your final grade. Not all homeworks will be graded: Three of the problem sets will be chosen for correction. Your failing to turn in one of the graded problem sets will mean that you lose the points assigned to it.
Your final grade will consist of the midterm exam (20%), the final exam (60%) and the homework (20%). There will be two exams: One midterm exam (not optional), in December, and a final exam in January/February. The structure of both exams will be identical and will consist of the following three sections: vocabulary concepts, theoretical questions (65%), and problems (35%). If you do not answer 15 of the 20 concepts correctly you will fail the exam.
Those of you that have already taken this class and failed have the option to only base your course grade only on the final exam. That means that your problem sets will not be checked or graded and you do not have to take the midterm: The final exam will determine the 100% of your grade. You have to notify me of your choice of grading system before the third week of the term.