Economic Analysis - Case Study 1Java

Java Python Economic Analysis Assignment - Case Study 1

ASSESSMENT  INSTRUCTIONS

LEARNING OUTCOME

Understand the main microeconomic issues associated with the decision making by individual consumers and firms.

TASK OVERVIEW

Your assignment consists of two parts.

In Part One, your group will provide an economic analysis of:

•    a situation described in an article; and

•    a situation in a related market that you will research.

In your analyses, you will use and explain the economic concepts and theories you studied in class. You will be allocated to a group of 5 to 6 students (depending on class size).

In Part Two, you will write an individual reflection and peer evaluation of your Part One group work.

Part One - Group Component

The group component includes the following tasks:

The article (attached below) titled “Worrying reason why Australian vegetables are getting more expensive while canned food remains cheap” (Article) discusses some of the factors that impacted   upon Australian vegetable market and caused vegetable prices to go up in recent times. In topic two – Market forces of demand and supply we discussed some of the non-price factors that cause the market to move on to a new equilibrium where the price is higher.

Your task is to use the economic concepts that you learned under topic two to provide an economic analysis of the situation described in the Article. Your analysis should include the following

1. Identify and Explain the economic concepts:

Identify economic concepts that you will use to analyse the given situation and explain the related economic theory in detail. Draw a diagram or diagrams to illustrate the theory.

Do NOT explain the content of the Article in this first section.

The word limit is 250 words (+/- 10%).

2. Apply the concepts to the situation described in the Article:

Provide a detailed economic analysis of the situation described in the Article below by using the concepts you identified in Part 1. You will need to show the links between the reported facts and the economic concepts you have identified in Part 1 above.

The word limit is 300 words (+/- 10%).

3. Research:

According to recent news reports, contrary to the situation in the vegetable market, the price of Australian meat, especially the price of lamb, has moved down in recent months. Research the Australian meat market to find out the economic factors that caused the meat prices to move in the opposite direction to the vegetable market in Australia You will:

•     research the market for meat in Australia;

•     identify two non-price factors that have contributed to the price decrease in that market: and

•     use your findings to compare the economic reasons that affected the two markets

The word limit is 250 words (+/- 10%).

Part Two - Individual Component

The individual component will include your reflections on this group project and a peer evaluation of your group members.

4. Reflections and peer evaluation task:

In this section, you will:

•    clearly explain your group structure and the work distribution among members;

•    evaluate how well each group member fulfilled their assigned task(s);

•    reflect on your own contribution to the group project;

•    based on these reflections, explain what you would do to improve your performance in the next group assignment.

Note: The individual component should be the work of the individual student with no input from the other group members.

The word limit is 200 words (+/- 10%).

Source texts and referencing

To complete Part One of this assignment, especially the research component, you will need to use information from source texts (e.g. journal articles, books, reports or media publications) and incorporate the information into your writing. This information should be paraphrased, summarised or quoted, and you MUST provide citations. You MUST also include the source text in a reference list at the end of your report. All sources used should be properly referenced (in-text and reference list) using APA referencing. See the 'Help resources' below.

You should use a minimum of two source texts in your writing, one of which should be where you sourced economic theory.

Word limits

If your responses are over the maximum word limits stipulated above, they will not be penalised, but only the content up to the word limits will be marked.

Please note that you will not be penalised for being under the word limits, however, you may not be able to adequately address all assessed criteria if you are significantly below the word limits.

Note: The word count should be displayed at the end of each task.

GUIDANCE ON THE USE OF GENERATIVE AI

This assessment restricts all use of generative Al.

In this assessment, you must not use generative artificial intelligence (AI) to generate any materials or content in relation to any part of the assessment task.

OTHER SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

•    The deadline for the submission of this assignment is 11.55 p.m. on Saturday 23rd of March 2024. The Turnitin window to submit your work will be open from 12.01 a.m. on Friday 22nd  March until 11.55 p.m. on Saturday 23rd March. Students can submit up to two drafts of their work to check and improve on the Turnitin similarity before the final submission deadline.

•    One member from the group will submit the group component to Turnitin and will include the names of all group members who contributed to the group project. Do NOT include the names of students who did not contribute to the group work. Doing so will be a breach of the College Academic Integrity Policy, and all group members could face penalties.

•    The student who submits the group project should attach their individual component as the last page of the group project. Other group members will separately submit their own individual component to Turnitin. (Note: Turnitin will accept only one document from one student. If you submit two documents the second one will replace the first one).

•    The accepted formats are Word or PDF only.

o Diagrams should be hand drawn and an image thereof should be incorporated to the Word document.

•    The writing and presentation of the assignment must be consistent with the guidelines set out in Appendix C of the Monash University Business and Economics Q Manual Economic Analysis Assignment - Case Study 1Java

ASSESSMENT WEIGHTING, PENALTIES AND CRITERIA

This assessment is worth 5% of your grade for the unit. The weightings of parts and sections are as follows:

Weightings of parts		Weightings of sections
Part One: Group component	80%	1. Economic concepts	25%
		2. Analysis	25%
		3. Research	20%
		4. Paraphrasing	5%
		5. Referencing: in-text citations and reference list	5%
Part Two: Individual component	20%

All members named in the group project will be given the same mark for the group component, unless there is disagreement among group members about the contribution of a particular member, in which case, your teacher, based on all available information, will decide the level of contribution of that member.

Penalties: You will be penalised 10% per day or part of each day for a late submission. These penalties will apply immediately after the submission deadline has expired.

HELP RESOURCES

•   Guidance is provided on researching in Chapter 3 of the Monash University Business and Economics Q Manual.

•    To learn more about how to reference appropriately, it is strongly recommended that you   complete the Monash UniversityCiting and referencing tutorialsin your own self-study time. You may also refer to the Monash College Library resources on Citing andReferencing.

•    Guidance on APA referencing is provided in Chapter 10 of the Monash University Business and Economics Q Manual.

•   To learn more about how to paraphrase and quote appropriately, it is strongly

recommended that you complete the Monash College Library tutorial Paraphrasing and Quoting Tutorial in your own self-study time.

All of the above resources are also available under the 'Seeking Help' tile on Moodle.

RUBRICS

Details of the assessment criteria can be found in the Economic Analysis Assignments - Case Study 1 Rubric in the Assessment tile on Moodle.

NEWS

'Worrying' reason why Australian vegetables are getting more expensive while canned food remains cheap

ABC Radio Brisbane /ByKenji Satoand Katherine  Feeney Posted Tue 30 Jan 2024 at 10:11am

 

Anthea Gaffney says she's started to keep an eye out on the unit price  because  of the cost of living crisis.  (ABC Radio Brisbane: Ken}i Sato)

Anthea Gaffney insists on buying fresh fruit and vegetables for her two kids, but she's started to feel the pinch at the check-out. The Brisbane sales manager was flabbergasted when she saw the cost of cherry tomatoes increasing  from $3.98 per punnet to $6.98 in a   matter of months.

"I'm looking at other options now like the corns, the eggplants, the cucumbers, zucchinis - the stuff we wouldn't normally goto," Ms Gaffney said. "It's something I wouldn't have considered previously, but with the cost of living crisis that we're seeing through the media day in, day out, everything's going up."

Shoppers have watched the price of fruit and vegetables  skyrocket despite canned produce remaining relatively cheap. Certain fruits and vegetables  are now much cheaper incans despite typically being grown and processed in several countries before eventually arriving on Australian shelves.

 

Ben Lyons said there was very little transparency in how much farmers were  paid.  (Supplied: Ben Lyons)

Rural Economies Centre of Excellence director Ben Lyons says there are many reasons for   this. The University of Southern Queensland associate professor says Australian farmers are seeing steep increases in expenses.

Dr Lyons said costs had increased  roughly 30-to-60 per cent in the past five years, largely due to fuel and stronger industrial relations laws. In comparison, Dr Lyons said tinned produce was typically done very cheaply overseas in enormous quantities by large conglomerates.

He said canned food had a much longer shelf life, meaning it was easier to produce and store in bulk without worrying about spoilage. Dr Lyons said Australians threw  away so much food that it would take an area the size of Victoria to grow it all.

 

These tomatoes were processed  in Italy, packed in NSW  and New Zealand, shipped to Brisbane, and sold for $1.80.

BC Radio Brisbane: Ken}i Sato)

A comparison by ABC Radio Brisbane Afternoons host Kat Feeney found fresh tomatoes at Woolworths  were more than twice as expensive as tinned tomatoes. However, fresh odd-bunch pears were much cheaper at $3.20 per kilogram compared to tinnedown- brand pears at $5.12 per kilogram.

Dr Lyons said Australia's big supermarkets had very strong bargaining power, meaning that farmers often had little room to negotiate. He said land usage was a growing concern in Queensland, with more farmers deciding to sell their land and leave.

Dr Lyons said this was often due to rising costs not being matched by the wholesale prices offered by supermarkets.

"Let's face it, the big two or three dictate what the price will be," he said.

"The pears befuddle me a little bit. I worry for the producer of the fresh pears when I hear that because they're obviously not making much money. "One of the challenges the industry faces is that it's a bit of a black box. The lack of market transparency is a real challenge and we need to question it