This is an individual paper done little by little every week in activities called sprints. Other students will act as peer reviewers of your sprints in weeks 1 and 3. As an author you will benefit from the comments received in weeks 1 and 3 from your peers and will be able to send a better paper at the end of the term in week 4. As a peer reviewer you will use critical thinking skills to help other authors to improve their papers.

Academic papers need to have a research question. There are only two types of research question for this assignment and you should select just ONE of them:

  • What are the main characteristics of the Demand and Supply of the firm or industry of your choice?
  • What are the main characteristics of the market structure of the firm or industry of your choice?

The list of firms to choose from is the following:

  • Amazon, Boeing, Costco, Facebook, Gillette, Hachette, J.C. Penney, McDonalds, Priceline, Schick, Virgin Atlantic, and Wal-Mart.

All these firms appear as business cases in your textbook and the NU Library has a site for us to search for materials related to these firms (see Library Resources in this document).

The paper should focus on answering your research question in no more than 2 pages, quality rather than quantity. I expect students to apply and use key concepts, research about the firm using academic and business journals, and provide evidence that supports main findings.

Objectives

At the end of this assignment students will:

  • Interpret the market conditions or market structures of real businesses (CLO3 or CLO1)
  • Employ marginal analysis to consumer and production decisions (CLO2, CLO6, CLO7)
  • Illustrate the concept of elasticity (CLO4)
  • Practice writing, analytical and peer review skills.

Paper Structure

The structure follows the sections of a short paper. The paper should be no more than 2 pages (single spaced, Times New Roman, font 12) without including the pages for the title, references and appendices. It contains the following distinguishable sections:

Abstract.  In a paragraph explain the argument of the paper, its logic and the concepts that are illustrated in it.

Introduction. The introduction should be just one paragraph long. It should set the relevance of the topic and finish with the main question you want to answer. The introduction must end with the research question paper in explicit question format.

Argument and Analysis of Evidence. The microeconomic analysis section should be the longest in the paper and it is the most important in terms of learning objectives.  Do not include