**Economics 2012 Higher and Ordinary**

JamesDundalk

For the bottle of water question at the start was random, was it basically the functions of Demand? I said demand would shift to the right in the event of

Increase in price of substitutes
Tastes - through advertising 'riverock - water you wear' etc.
Then expectations - eg if water mains were to be powered off for a day with introduction of Irish water, demand of bottled would increase.

Was a bit inventive, but tried to base it on the theory of the functions of demand!

PictureFrame

JamesDundalk wrote: »

What did you say for international trade question on benefits of trade to irish consumers and what influences Ireland's competitiveness abroad? Also what did you say for the implications of a decrease in economic growth?

For the first part of that I wrote about:

• Improved Standard of living/ more commodities
• Increased competiveness with Irish firms, more efficent market place for consumers to choose from
• Employment from Companies that Exports goods from Ireland

For the 2nd:

• Irish Labour Costs
• Transport Costs
• Utility Costs
• Price Inflation

For the 3rd:

POSITIVE:

• Lower Wage Demands
• Lower Labour Shortages
• Price Stability/ Less Inflation

NEGATIVE:

• Loss of Employment
• Loss of Government Revenue

SD021

JamesDundalk wrote: »

For the bottle of water question at the start was random, was it basically the functions of Demand? I said demand would shift to the right in the event of

Increase in price of substitutes
Tastes - through advertising 'riverock - water you wear' etc.
Then expectations - eg if water mains were to be powered off for a day with introduction of Irish water, demand of bottled would increase.

Was a bit inventive, but tried to base it on the theory of the functions of demand!

Yeah I just said something along the lines of:
- Unexpected factors such as a drought.
- Bottled water firms engaging in advertising campaigns
- General income levels rising

PictureFrame

SD021 wrote: »

Yeah I did the same questions. Was pretty happy with it all. Still unsure about my transfer earnings and supply price definitions tho. Always kinda thought of them as the same thing :L

I loved Question 3. I wrote:

Supply Price- Minimum payment needed to bring a factor of production into use and to keep it in that employment

Transfer Earnings- The return the factor could earn from its' next best employment

I had them learnt off word-for-word in my brain! :P

JamesDundalk wrote: »

For the bottle of water question at the start was random, was it basically the functions of Demand? I said demand would shift to the right in the event of

Increase in price of substitutes
Tastes - through advertising 'riverock - water you wear' etc.
Then expectations - eg if water mains were to be powered off for a day with introduction of Irish water, demand of bottled would increase.

Was a bit inventive, but tried to base it on the theory of the functions of demand!

Yeah once you talked about the functions of demand you were grand! I said:

-Tastes
-Increase in Price of other goods (soft-drinks) substitutes basically
-Income (I think)

SD021

PictureFrame wrote: »

I loved Question 3. I wrote:

Supply Price- Minimum payment needed to bring a factor of production into use and to keep it in that employment

Transfer Earnings- The return the factor could earn from its' next best employment

I had them learnt off word-for-word in my brain! :P)

Yeah that's exactly what I wrote!

JamesDundalk

PictureFrame wrote: »

For the first part of that I wrote about:

• Improved Standard of living/ more commodities
• Increased competiveness with Irish firms, more efficent market place for consumers to choose from
• Employment from Companies that Exports goods from Ireland

For the 2nd:

• Irish Labour Costs
• Transport Costs
• Utility Costs
• Price Inflation

For the 3rd:


POSITIVE:

• Lower Wage Demands
• Lower Labour Shortages
• Price Stability/ Less Inflation

NEGATIVE:

• Loss of Employment
• Loss of Government Revenue

Cool, I gave most of them points too - I also talked about reduced pressure on infrastructure, reduced immigration, increased emigration as well. Think I said about deflation and a decrease in aggregate demand. It was basically national income question tied into international trade don't you think? I gave as many points as I could think of to hopefully allow them to take my best few, do you think that is okay to do? Timing was so tight, writing until the very last minute!

Bears and Vodka

PictureFrame wrote: »

I loved Question 3. I wrote:

Supply Price- Minimum payment needed to bring a factor of production into use and to keep it in that employment

Transfer Earnings- The return the factor could earn from its' next best employment

I had them learnt off word-for-word in my brain! :P

I wrote that plus gave examples. For example if a worker is not willing to work for 300 a week but will work for 400 his supply price is 400 a week.
Examples rule if your definition ends up being ambiguous and the examiner is not sure he will see your example and know what you meant.

JamesDundalk

Also am sure everyone was expecting it, but if I could quote myself from the other day - household charge came up haha

HeaneyBabe

Only bad thing about this exam being so good is that they'll most likely mark it harder. Only a certain amount of A's can be given realistically

JamesDundalk

Boarderline spamming here, but internal economies of scale was the increase in production costs I think?

And the external was the shared R&D costs?

Also the size of the multiplier wasn't a bad question.

Only thing I really really messed up was drawing those diagrams to represent the elasticity and then selecting the most complementary good AND the first part of comparing short run average cost curve and long run average cost curve, apart from that quite satisfied. GOODBYE A1!

JamesDundalk

HeaneyBabe wrote: »

Only bad thing about this exam being so good is that they'll most likely mark it harder. Only a certain amount of A's can be given realistically

Ah shiat, ya think so? I don't really think it will be, it wasn't an easy exam, most of the people here have been working at the subject, I'm sure there are lots of people who found it really hard?

HeaneyBabe

JamesDundalk wrote: »

Ah shiat, ya think so? I don't really think it will be, it wasn't an easy exam, most of the people here have been working at the subject, I'm sure there are lots of people who found it really hard?

Everyone in my school seemed to think it was more easy than hard.. including my teacher who is always fair. I hope not though.

JamesDundalk

What school is that? What did you say for comparing Monopoly and Perfect competition under different headings?

HeaneyBabe

JamesDundalk wrote: »

What school is that? What did you say for comparing Monopoly and Perfect competition under different headings?

I just compared them like for
-barriers to entry I explained why there was none in perfect comp and why there are some in monopoly.
-price discrim i explained that you need to have monopolistic power for it to happen and explained how firms in PC don't have that
-economies of scale - i explained why firms in PC don't benefit from them while a monopolist would
-profits in long run.. just that monopoly earn them in long run and why and why PC don't

JamesDundalk

Same I messed up economies of scale slightly, I wrote a load for each one. But for eos I just said that PC won't experience internal economies of scale as they only supply a small fraction but may experience overall eos due to developments in infrastructure etc. in the industry.

Genuinely can't even remember what I said for whether or not monopolies benefitted. What even is the answer?

Dapics

Q2 was lovely.

Part iii was really nice.

Q3 as nice, but dont know if i hit on the marking scheme on part iii

Q1 was nice, I may have messed up part iii

Q5 was a mess.... I just wrote whatever came into my head.... didn't get part iii done.

I said for positive and negative effects on irish economy:
Positive : Increased trade.... developing countries may not be able to produce what Ireland can... eg- China buys Irish quality beef
Negative : Increase in Costs of imports.... it now costs more to import goods/services from developing countries due to economic development....
Are these two answers applicable to the question????

Short questions were very specific.... the one on black economy almost caught me out. I couldn't think of a 2nd impact on exchequer.... I said something like:
Increase in price of land
Reduced Inflation
Extra revenue from tax.

JamesDundalk

I talked about china and beef as well haha, but was that not for the international trade question?

Yeah the black economy question,

Increase in taxes - people engaging in nixers

Reduction in working hours - people on self assessment income tax underclaiming taxes, don't think it was right

Do you mean for exchequer as in the last question? I said increased revenue for provsion of important services e.g. library and broadening the tax base. Also when it asked was it progressive or regressive? I said it was ultimately regressive, despite having a progressive element in the fact that council houses are exempt, other small houses still have to pay the same as larger one?

Dapics

HeaneyBabe wrote: »

Everyone in my school seemed to think it was more easy than hard.. including my teacher who is always fair. I hope not though.

I thought it was a hard but fair paper.... It was very easy and nice if what you studied really hard came up but was pretty hard if you were left with no questions you really liked.
I was happy perfect comp. came up
I was dissapointed with rest of my paper though... my Q5 was horriffic...

HeaneyBabe

Dapics wrote: »

I thought it was a hard but fair paper.... It was very easy and nice if what you studied really hard came up but was pretty hard if you were left with no questions you really liked.
I was happy perfect comp. came up
I was dissapointed with rest of my paper though... my Q5 was horriffic...

Aw not to worry, I'm sure you did better than you think! I studied literally all day yesterday, awake at 7am to start the studying. I cram really well and most of the questions I was prepared for.
I didn't do 5, it look very difficult.

Dapics

JamesDundalk wrote: »

I talked about china and beef as well haha, but was that not for the international trade question?

Yeah the black economy question,

Increase in taxes - people engaging in nixers

Reduction in working hours - people on self assessment income tax underclaiming taxes, don't think it was right

Do you mean for exchequer as in the last question? I said increased revenue for provsion of important services e.g. library and broadening the tax base. Also when it asked was it progressive or regressive? I said it was ultimately regressive, despite having a progressive element in the fact that council houses are exempt, other small houses still have to pay the same as larger one?

I said it was regressive due to the fact that it did not take into account the economic conditions/circumstances different bands of taxpayers were expierencing

I.e - A rich person pays €100, a poor person pays the same.

For Black economy:

Increase in govt. justice budget due to them having to combat black economy.
as for why the black economy is expierecing growth:

Recession: less disposable income.... people forced to look for alternatives.
Regulation: Some things banned/illegalized... people turn to black market to gain access to these goods/services.

I also added in the fact that more people are turning to illegal money lenders to gain liquidity

JamesDundalk

The very last short question was it on property tax or the household charge? ahh..

HeaneyBabe

JamesDundalk wrote: »

The very last short question was it on property tax or the household charge? ahh..

household charge

Dapics

JamesDundalk wrote: »

The very last short question was it on property tax or the household charge? ahh..

Both! It allowed both intepretations.... seems Fine Gael are making sure us young economists are not disillusioned with the system in place... trying to be politically correct by giving both "Charge" and "Tax".... The shnakes...

JamesDundalk

Good stuff

bobjimmy

Does anyone know what way the marks were split up for question 2??

JamesDundalk

Dapics wrote: »

Both! It allowed both intepretations.... seems Fine Gael are making sure us young economists are not disillusioned with the system in place... trying to be politically correct by giving both "Charge" and "Tax".... The shnakes...

When answering whether it was progresive or regressive was it okay to take it from the angle of the household charge and say it was ultimately regressive, hope so.

Really wonder how many marks was going for those stupid demand curves in the elasticity question!

Mysteriouschic

For the water in the short questions I think I said season if it's winter less water will be drank. I can't remember the other point the seasonal one was made up.
I think it was as prices rise or something.

The elasticity I said the first one of the negative ones were a substitute because substitutes are always negative and the the positive on was a complimentary because their always positive :S.

I forgot to look at the economists so I couldn't do q5 or q8 and I'f forgotten my calculator so not the Q7 either. Q6 was very handy.

Is indirect tax I said tax added on before purchasing like cigarettes and for direct I said tax added on after like airport tickets :S.

HeaneyBabe

Mysteriouschic wrote: »

For the water in the short questions I think I said season if it's winter less water will be drank. I can't remember the other point the seasonal one was made up.
I think it was as prices rise or something.

The elasticity I said the first one of the negative ones were a substitute because substitutes are always negative and the the positive on was a complimentary because their always positive :S.

I forgot to look at the economists so I couldn't do q5 or q8 and I'f forgotten my calculator so not the Q7 either. Q6 was very handy.

Is indirect tax I said tax added on before purchasing like cigarettes and for direct I said tax added on after like airport tickets :S.

Indirect tax is tax on goods and services which does not take into account the ability to pay.

JamesDundalk

Did anybody do the question on Costs of Production?

HeaneyBabe

JamesDundalk wrote: »

Did anybody do the question on Costs of Production?

God no!