Advanced Principles of Economics

Prologue to Partha Dasgupta, *Economics: A Very Short Introduction*

From: Brad DeLong delong@econ.berkeley.edu
To: UCB Econ 2 Spring 2014 students
Subject: The Prologue to Partha Dasgupta's "Economics: A Very Short Introduction"

Read it:

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Prologue

Becky's world

Becky, who is 10 years old, lives with her parents and an older brother Sam in a suburban town in America's Midwest. Becky's father works in a firm specializing in property law. Depending on the firm's profits, his annual income varies somewhat, but is rarely below 145,000 US dollars ($145,000). Becky's parents met at college. For a few years her mother worked in publishing, but when Sam was born she decided to concentrate on raising a family. Now that both Becky and Sam attend school, she does voluntary work in local education. The family live in a two-storey house. It has four bedrooms, two bathrooms upstairs and a toilet downstairs, a large drawing-cum-dining room, a modern kitchen, and a family room in the basement. There is a plot of land at the rear - the backyard - which the family use for leisure activities.

Discussion Questions for Partha Dasgupta, *Economics: A Very Short Introduction*

Prologue

• How different do you think the lives of Becky and Desta are now and are likely to be?
• How would you go about explaining why the lives of Becky and Desta are and are likely to be different?
• How would an economist go about explaining why the lives of Becky and Desta are and are likely to be different?
• What are the costs and benefits of thinking like an economist?
• What kind of person would start an analysis by asking: "What are the costs and benefits of thinking like an economist?"

Econ 2: Spring 2014: Why We Read Partha Dasgupta

From Amazon's page on the book:

Declan Trott:

‘The extent of the market’ is limited not just by transport but by trust: [T]here is also a feeling that some of the [recent] best-sellers have trivialised economics, titillating the reader with sex and drugs while neglecting the more important insights of the discipline. Nobody could accuse Partha Dasgupta of deepening this rut. In this Very Short Introduction, he has taken as his theme the original mystery of economics: the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. And he motivates the study not with unadorned GDP statistics but by comparing the lives of two young girls: Becky, who lives in an affluent American suburb, and Desta, the daughter of Ethiopian farmers. Why do two children, born so much alike, live such different lives?

Econ 2: Spring 2014: A Note from Adam Smith on Wealth, Productivity, Human Psychology, and Inequality

From his An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations:

The difference of natural talents in different men is, in reality, much less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which appears to distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is not upon many occasions so much the cause as the effect of the division of labour.

Course Policies: Econ 2: Spring 2014: UC Berkeley

Economics 2: Principles of Economics: University of California at Berkeley: Spring 2014

Course Website: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/econ-2-spring-2014/
This Document: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2014/01/econ-2-spring-2014-course-policies.html
Lecturer: J. Bradford DeLong jbdelong@berkeley.edu 925-708-0467 Evans 691A 
GSIs: Maria Constanza Ballesteros mc.ballesteros@berkeley.edu; Connie Min conniemin@berkeley.edu

Course Meetings: Lecture: MW 4-5:30, 101 Barker. Sections:

• Th 8-9, B51 Hildebrand
• Th 10-11, 7 Evans
• M 9-10A, 3 Evans
• M 1-2P, 101 Wheeler

Course Intro: Econ 2: Spring 2014: UC Berkeley

Econ 2: Spring 2014: Week 0: Winter Break Assignments

Winter Break Reading: Before you show up here in the spring for Econ 2, please:

• Read: Partha Dasgupta, Prologue to Economics: A Very Short Introduction http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/10/prologue-to-partha-dasgupta-economics-a-very-short-introduction.html
• Read and Consider: Possible Discussion Questions for Partha Dasgupta, Economics: A Very Short Introduction http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/10/possible-discussion-questions-for-partha-dasgupta-economics-a-very-short-introduction.html
• The "Introduction" and chapters 1 through 5 of Book I (i.e., I:1-5) of Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (available for free on the web or free for Amazon Kindle or Apple iBooks; you can also buy a copy) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm
• Pp. 1-31 of Paul Seabright, In the Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life (ISBN #: 978-0691146461 Publisher: Princeton) http://www.amazon.com/Company-Strangers-Natural-History-Economic/dp/0691146462/
• Pp. ix-69 of Milton Friedman and Rose Director Friedman, Free to Choose (ISBN #: 978-0156334600 Publisher: Mariner) http://www.amazon.com/Free-Choose-Statement-Milton-Friedman/dp/0156334607/

Yes, there will be a quiz…

And then, before your first section meeting:

• Read: Partha Dasgupta, Economics: A Very Short Introduction http://www.amazon.com/Economics-A-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192853457