Embedded Files
Syllabus
Final grades after reexamination
(If you want to discuss the exam results, please email me).
Schedule of individual meetings for discussing course papers
Instructor
Michal Brzezinski (mbrzezinski at wne.uw.edu.pl)
Course description
This course is offered for first-year students at the Faculty of Economics Sciences.
There are two main objectives of the course. First, the course presents the core economic ideas – the economic point of view – from the historical perspective. The economic point of view, understood as a collection of interrelated ideas such as rationality, self-interest, equilibrium, maximization, unintended consequences, invisible hand mechanisms, etc., is presented as evolving from simpler past ideas to modern more complex ones. The course will discuss how the economic point of view was conceptualised in the works of intellectual giants of the economic profession – Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, marginalists, institutionalists, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman and others. Learning the economic point of view by studying simpler historical ideas and models will help students to better understand modern economic science.
The second objective of the course is to develop students’ abilities to do scientific work. Students will learn to give class presentations based on the texts of past prominent economists, take part in in-class discussions, and write a paper in a scientific style.
Course materials and resources
All materials including my PP slides, course readings, and advice on giving presentations and writing course papers will appear in due course on this webpage (see below).
Office hours
Office hours are on Fridays from 3PM to 4.30PM in Room B006 (please email me to set up an appointment).
My webpage: https://sites.google.com/view/brzezinski/
Email (mbrzezinski at wne.uw.edu.pl) is a best mean of communication with me. I try to respond quickly. However, I will not read emails without some greetings, content in the body of the email and closing. In particular, I will not read attachments to emails with no text in the body of the email. See also here for some advice:
Students: How to email to your Professor, employer, and professional peers
Course requirements and grading
You will be required to:
1) give one in-class presentation (using PP or other slides), based on an assigned course reading (see below detailed course outline)
2) write one paper on a chosen topic covering some aspects of economics
3) take part in in-class discussions
4) pass one final exam in the Summer exam session. The exam consists of 10 short-answer essay questions. You should give answers to 5 of them. The material required for the exam covers all course readings and my presentations. Passing is granted for obtaining at least 50% of exam points.
The weights for these elements are the following: exam (40%), paper (20%), presentation (30%), participation in class discussions (10%).
However, to get a credit for the course you have to get a passable grade on exam (at least get 50% of exam points), and also get a passable grade for the presentation and the paper.
You can have at most 4 unexcused absences.
Textbook
Mark Blaug, Economic Theory in Retrospect (A textbook on history of economic thought that may be helpful in preparing presentations. Advanced level).
Student presentations and course papers
Instructions for preparing presentations and writing course papers
Formal requirements for course papers
Common errors found in course papers
Detailed course outline
Most of the course readings are password-protected (if you do not remember the password email me)
Class 1: 4 October 2024
Topic: Introduction to the course
Class 2: 11 October 2024
Topic: Instructions for writing course papers, discussing papers’ subjects, objectives and bibliography
Class 3: 18 October 2024
Topic: Assigning presentations to students; discussion of course papers' topics
Class 4: 25 October 2024
Topic: Discussion of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences
Readings for all students:
Nobel Prize Committee popular science background on 2024 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences
Noah Smith, A Nobel for the big big questions: Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson win a prize for their grand unified theory of development. s
Class 5: 1 November 2024: no class
Class 6: 8 November 2024
Topic: Aristotle and modern economics; example of in-class presentation by instructor; advice for preparing presentations
Course reading (on which presentation is based): Aristotle’s Politics and Nichomachean Ethics
Additional readings:
1) J. Broome, Utility (read only paragraphs 2.1-2.2)
2) T. Sedlacek, Aristotle
Class 7: 15 November 2024
Topic: Mercantilism (student presentation of Thomas Mun: 1st group: 470256, 469919; 2nd group: 473927)
Course reading (for presenters only): Mun
Readings for all students:
1) R. Backhouse, Science, Politics and Trade in Seventeenth-Century England
2) J. Becker, German Neo-Mercantilism: Contradictions of a (Non-)Model
Class 8: 22 November 2024
Topic: Adam Smith (student presentation on Adam Smith: 1st group: 473790; 2nd group: 473944)
Course reading (for presenters only): Smith (skip Book I chapters VI-VII, pp. 162-165 and Book IV chapter VIII-IX, pp. 173-179)
Readings for all students:
1) R. Backhouse, Adam Smith
Class 9: 29 November 2024
Topic: Thomas Malthus (student presentation on Malthus: 1st group: 473149; 2nd group: 456510)
Course reading (for presenters only): Malthus
Readings for all students:
Class 10: 6 December 2024
Topic: Jean-Baptiste Say (student presentation on Say: 1st group: 473702; 2nd group: 459108)
Course reading (for presenters only): Say
Class 11: 13 December 2024
Topic: Economics of David Ricardo (student presentation on Ricardo: 1st group: 473823, 472656; 2nd group: 446226)
Course reading (for presenters only): Ricardo (Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, chapter 31: On Machinery).
Class 12: 20 December 2024
Topic: John Stuart Mill (student presentation on Mill: 1st group: 476599; 2nd group: 473856)
Course reading (for presenters only): Mill (skip Books II-III, pp. 335-349)
Class 13: 10 January 2025
Topic: Karl Marx (student presentation on Marx and Engels: 1st group: 473724; 2nd group: 475455)
Course reading (for presenters only): Marx and Engels (present only parts I-II, pp. 14-27)
Class 14: 17 January 2025
Topic: Marginal revolution (student presentation on Jevons:)
Course reading (for presenters only): Jevons (present only chapters II-IV, skip chapters I and V)
Class 15: 24 January 2025
Topic: Alfred Marshall (student presentation on Marshall: 1st group: 473818; 2nd group: 472640)
Course reading (for presenters only): Marshall (skip Book IV, pp. 505-509)
Start of the 2nd semester
Class 16: 21 February 2025
Topic: Leon Walras
Class 17: 28 February 2025
Topic: Max Weber (student presentation on Weber: 1st group: 444183, 466223; 2nd group: 473156, 478813)
Course reading (for presenters only): Weber
Class 18: 7 March 2025
Topic: Institutionalism and Thorstein Veblen (student presentation on Veblen : 1st group: 473208, 476711; 2nd group: 473153)
Course reading (for presenters only): Veblen (skip chapters 2 and 5, pp. 613-617, 641-645)
Presentation on Veblen's views on consumption
Presentation on institutionalism
Class 19: 14 March 2025
Topic: Economics of Keynes (student presentation on Keynes: 1st group: 473243, 465689; 2nd group: 474427)
Course reading (for presenters only): Keynes
Keynes, inequality and Piketty
Class 20: 21 March 2025
Topic: Milton Friedman (student presentation on M. & R. Friedman's text: 1st group: 477704; 2nd group: 478826; student presentation on Block's text: 1st group: 474902; 2nd group: 474496)
Course readings (for presenters only): 1) Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to choose, chapter 1; 2) Block
Class 21: 28 March 2025
Topic: Austrian School of Economics (student presentation on Hayek: 1st group: 474908; 2nd group: 464356)
Course reading (for presenters only): Hayek
Class 22: 4 April 2025
Topic: New Institutional Economics (student presentation on North: 1st group: 476698, 475081; 2nd group: 473153)
Course reading (for presenters only): North
Presentation on New Institutional Economics
Class 23: 11 April 2025
Topic: Behavioral economics
Literature for discussion (student presentation on Mullainthan & Thaler: 2nd group: 473156):
Soofi, M., Najafi, F., & Karami-Matin, B. (2020). Using insights from behavioral economics to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Applied health economics and health policy, 18(3), 345-350. Pres
T Zaleskiewicz, Behavioral finance, in: Handbook of contemporary behavioral economics, 2015.
Class 24: 25 April 2025
No class.
Class 25: 16 May 2025
Individual consultations regarding my comments on your course paper (Room B006)
Class 26: 23 May 2025
Individual consultations regarding my comments on your course paper (Room B006)
Class 27: 30 May 2025
Individual consultations regarding my comments on your course paper (Room B006)
Class 28: 6 June 2025
Individual consultations regarding my comments on your course paper (Room B006)
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