Essay Describing the Relevant, Applicable Economic Theories – Economics Assignment Help

Assignment Task

 

Current Event Project
 
This is an individual or team project, which will be decided on the first day of class. If it is a team project, each team will have three to six students. Each student/team will first identify two current economic events worthy of our attention and submit a proposal in 400-500 words (200-250 words per event) that briefly describes the events and why they are interesting to analyze (with sources and references if available). Any phenomenon that involves some aspects of economic decision making may qualify for such an event. The professor will recommend one out of the two and the student/team will create a discussion thread on the Discussion Forum with links to an initial set of source materials on the event and some initial thoughts/questions about the event.
 
ALL students are to read about ALL the events posted by ALL the teams (Please forgive Dr. Wang for being a little repetitive here. He’s having a senile moment), raise questions, and make comments and/or respond to others’ comments/questions under the thread. A post should address an interesting point that adds value to our learning. A post can be a meaningful and thoughtful question connecting the event to the economic theories covered in the text/class, and the question does not have to have an answer. Support your question and argument with supporting materials from textbook concepts/theory, external sources, and/or personal experiences. At least two meaningful comments per topic (including the topic of your own group) are expected. Grading will be based on the quality and quantity of your comments.
 
Finally, on the last day of class, the student/team that identified the event will make a presentation on the event. The student/team will describe the event, identify the interesting and relevant problems, questions and issues, synthesize the spirit and contents of the discussion forum, integrate the economic theory covered in the course, and reach a reasonable, informed conclusion about the event. The presentation will be about 15 minutes long plus 5-10 minutes of Q&A.
 
Presentation Outline
Synopsis: describing the event, presenting the available data and information
Issues: identifying the major economic problems/questions/issues involved in the event
Synthesis: summary of the discussion forum
Theories: describing the relevant, applicable economic theories
Application: applying the economic theories to explain, analyze the event
Conclusion: drawing some informed conclusions, posing practical and theoretical questions for further analysis and study (My responsibilities)
 
Event examples:
Pricing strategies (Netflix, Uber, Airlines, Google AdWords, Auto dealerships, Tesla)
Home repair service market (Angie’s List, HomeAdvisor.com)
Consumer decision making (evaluating a doctor, a hospital, a university, or a pair of sneakers; income allocation, risk preference)
Auctions (eBay, Sotheby’s, real estate foreclosures, land, mining, oil, natural gas)
Marketing (branding, advertising, new product launches, promotion)
Innovation (patents, new technology, demand creation)
Employment, education, HR (information asymmetry, agency problem, employee evaluation and incentive, salary negotiation)
Industry and firm profitability (sources, competitive advantages)
Inter-firm relationships (contracts, strategic alliance, supply chain arrangements)
Business models and firm valuation (Yelp, Google, Amazon)
Government inventions: Environmental regulations, import restrictions, tax incentives for certain businesses and industries, licenses and permits, soda tax (Philadelphia, Chicago)

(Our Topic) Rising Adoption of Online Home Buying
Some areas of the U.S. economy have struggled to recover quickly from the COVID-19 pandemic while others have not. A prime example of the latter is the U.S. housing market. Pre-pandemic, the housing market was already on a hot streak and the U.S. median home value has been on a steady increase since 2014 (PK, 2021). Many people worried at the beginning of 2020 about a potential shift in the market. These worries were further amplified when we began to enter the COVID-19 pandemic in March of last year. This uncertainty can be seen by the Q2 2020 number of existing homes sold dropping by 17.9% compared to the year prior (Yun, 2021). This pullback in sales was short lived, however, as both Q3 and Q4 of 2020 saw dramatic increases in the number of units sold. This quick turn around is due to several factors: a historically low 30-year mortgage rate, increased flexibility due to remote working, and pent-up demand due to the retraction felt earlier in the year (Soper, 2020). One other factor that may have contributed to the quick recovery within real estate is the use of online real estate platforms. Real estate platforms like Zillow and Redfin have been gaining popularity in recent years. While both fell on hard times early in 2020, they both added several million users by the end of the year (Soper, 2020). Both operations have also been able to expand revenue through ads, direct loan operations, and increasing their own real estate portfolios through in-house brokers. Given their recent expansion, we want to examine if this is a permanent shift towards online real estate and how it will disrupt the real estate industry.