Something Sensible!

Writing something sensible after a long time. Have been attending this course called "Economics of Social Issues" and i cant stop falling in love with economics. Before this course, i had minimal amount of knowledge about economics (some fart they put in 9th and 10th if one remembers!). But i have been attending classes quite regularly and have been really interested in some of the things if not all, that are said and done in class. It is exciting how a theory based subject like economics can be made to look very practical once it is applied to some issues surrounding us. Here is a brief review of the course till date.

1.Started with description of types of economies. Went on to discuss the problems with transition. Case study of Estonia was done which was quite interesting although not generally applicable to all countries undergoing transition.

2. Then the standard demand, supply, PPF curves were discussed, effects of different situations on the movement of the curves etc was taken up.

3. With the basic background in place the course proceeded to its main objectives, discussing social issues related to economics. First issue was poverty. Growth, development etc were defined and discussions were held about the applicability of these to the issue of poverty. I think that the issue was not given sufficient coverage though.

4. Next issue taken up was Crime. Although the decisions about absolutely anything related to crime can be based on morality / immorality, it was quite surprising to see how economics can provide insight into some controversial topics like legalisation of drugs. The government machinery to be involved, its distribution etc can be quite well understood applying simple concepts of demand, supply, marginal social cost, marginal social benefit etc.
This issue was over discussed in the class according to me (or maybe the Shaastra break made it feel so!)

5. Pollution was the next choice of all of us unanimously to be taken up for discussion. Here a few more concepts like marginal private cost, marginal private benefits, externality etc were defined. Their relations with the corresponding parameters related to society seem to fall into place quite naturally! The problem of pollution was again discussed in detail without "sentiments". I found the applications of the MSB, MSC, MPB, MPC to the problem really really insightful.
2 mechanisms for controlling pollution were also taken up, taxes and pollution rights. Again, they seem so simple when supported with graphs of our usual familiar parameters.
A very good discussion on Carbon Credits Trading followed (which i slept through) and might have ended up screwing in the exam! :P

Overall, a very very interesting course, thanks to the group of students im learning with, as also Prof. Debashis Acharya. Hope the next issues going to be discussed are equally interesting and help me in my love affair! :-)