3 Discussion Questions
1. Watch this video (
Oligopolies and Monopolistic Competition
) to help you prepare for this week’s discussion:
Reply to these prompts using the company for which you currently work, a business with which you are familiar, or a dream business you want to start:
- Does the business operate in a market that is characterized by perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, or pure monopoly? Explain how you drew your conclusion about its market structure.
2. Let’s talk about two trade offs we face every day: how we spend our time and money.
We can spend our income, or save it for investing. We can spend time working to earn an income, or we do other things that we broadly call leisure.
Reply to these prompts to start your discussion:
- Describe a tradeoff you have made in terms of your income or your time. What choice did you make with your money or time? Why did you make that choice?
3. Is the GDP Still Accurate in the Digital Age?
GDP is the sum of all income earned in a country during a year. Alternatively, it can be thought of as the value of all production in an economy during a year. But do income and production measure happiness?The way we measure GDP can both overstate and understate people’s happiness and well-being. It understates economic activity and well-being when it does not take into account production that is not exchanged in a market (grandma providing free baby-sitting) and leisure time. It overstates well-being when two otherwise identical activities are measured the same even though one produces more pollution.
Reply to these questions to begin your discussion:
- Should we continue to measure GDP as we do now? If you don’t think it should be changed, explain your reasoning. If you think it should be changed, what changes would you recommend, and why.
Must have 4 sentences for each question.