Economics

Welcome to Robert Francis' Homepage

If you want to examine my syllabus for each of my courses please click on the appropriate link. Each of these classes speaks to a unique student population. You should try to match your educational needs and interest with the appropriate class. To help you with this task here is a brief description of each class.

	Economics 100 Economics 100 is often called the survey of economics. It is designed for students who wish to learn about that part of our society where we work, play and generally engage in when buying or selling something. It is not intended for the four year business major or the Economics major, but it can be a useful background class for these students. It is a excellent class for almost any other major [including undecided :)]. Why do I think it excellent for ANY MAJOR? Every one of us interacts with the economy daily, yet we know very little about how it works. After taking this course you should have a handle on many of the most important issues of you life. Because of the breadth of the class, it is less mathematically rigorous than the 200 classes, although we still heavily rely on graphs and deductive reasoning. The way that I teach the class is emphasizing historical and contemporary issues with as much "hands on" projects as seems practical.
	Economics 200 Economics 200 is often call the principles of microeconomics or just microeconomics. This class focuses on the theories that describe behaviors of economic actors (such as consumers, businesses and government) and how they interact with, and through, markets. Which is a fancy way of saying microeconomics studies what causes a price (like your rent or tuition) to go up (or down) and how different groups of people (businesses, consumers, government) respond to this change. Also, we assess whether this is "good" (efficient) or "bad"(inefficient) for society. Issues that I address include; why Capitalism has been so successful in increasing the material well being of society, why some individuals and groups of individuals don't seem to benefit as much as others, what should we do about monopolies, why does the market system generate so much pollution and what is the appropriate role of government in dealing with these problems. I use a format of introduction of theory, student "hands on" application of the theory and the contemporary issues surrounding the theory in my teaching. The class is somewhat abstract and here at Shoreline and at the University of Washington it satisfies the quantitative reasoning (math) requirement.
	Economics 201 Economics 201 is often call the principles of macroeconomics or just macroeconomics. This class focuses on the performance of the economy as a whole. When you hear words like recession, slow down, expansion, inflation, unemployment, cost of living you are hearing macroeconomic issues. Students enjoy this class because it makes a lot of the news that they had not really been paying attention to make sense. I try to encourage this by making the class very "current" though the use of daily newspapers and other news media. I also include a section on international economics in this class.