Overview
I submitted this assignment and got an 80%. I was left submission notes and given the opportunity to redo it. I'll attach the assignment purpose given by the professor below:
These topics center around government involvement in affecting market outcomes for a variety of reasons. Government activity in markets is enormous, and therefore crucial for you to understand in order to better grasp how markets work. You can choose to write about price controls, although articles may be harder to find. You could instead choose to write about taxes. Of course these are ubiquitous in our lives and the media write plentiful articles about taxes as a result.
The government gets involved in international trade as well. In fact, governments' efforts to restrict international trade in the early 20th century is one commonly cited reason why the Great Depression lasted so long and was so damaging. Also, the popular media and politicians sometimes do not understand how trade or trade restrictions work. Thus, articles about international trade may be misleading. In your efforts, be certain to identify when this is the case.
Finally, you can choose to write about market failures; those instances when the government can improve market outcomes. The biggest selection of articles in this category will likely center around pollution and climate change. If you choose this type of article, be certain it focuses on economics rather than on science.
I'll attach a document with the instructions of the assignment. To sum it up - you pick a topic from the doc, and answer a few questions in detail about the topic. You find a journal, or article to write about.
Here's my submission comments from my first attempt: Hi Dylan. I don't think you fully understand what market failures are. They're circumstances when supply and demand cannot reach an efficient outcome. Unit 8 discusses three specific instances: externalities, common resources, and public goods. The example in your article isn't a market failure. It seems to be portraying a leftward shift of demand for Apple products (for whatever reason). That's not a market failure; it's a market being efficient, the way it's expected to act.