Pick any popular company that has information on the web you can search for. Page 1 cover page Page 2-3 Introduction to your company Page 3-5 Relate your company to the student learning outcomes for t

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 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.

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.

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 tables and figures here, those should be placed in the F section. In this section you should present the theoretical elements applied to your firm or industry and the evidence (quantitative and qualitative) that supports your arguments.

For a Demand-Supply paper make sure you apply key terms and concepts related to quantity demanded, shifts of demand, elasticity, marginal analysis, preferences of consumers, supply, shifts of supply, production process, cost structure, market equilibrium, consumer and producer surpluses.

For a Market Structure paper make sure you apply key terms and concepts related to price taker and price maker markets (perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly and monopoly), profit maximization objective in the short run and long run, marginal analysis, price competition, non-price competition, determination of output level to maximize profit, firm interdependence, price control, consumer surplus, producer surplus, market equilibrium.

Make sure you explicitly use at least five key terms in this section from the list provided in ‘Theoretical Concepts that should be Included in your Paper.’

Conclusion. This is the section that shows your deep understanding of your case and must be directly related to the research questions in the introduction. The conclusion should be just one paragraph long and must answer the research question explicitly. You can also expand on the implications of your answer and predict something about the future.

References. Include all references used in the paper.

Tables and Figures. All visuals and tables are placed in this section.

All sections of the paper (Abstract, Introduction, Argument and Analysis of Evidence, Conclusion, References and Tables and Figures) must be APA as it is described below.

We will use the specific APA style used by the Journal of Research on Innovation Teaching (JRIT), a journal supported by National University. Every peer reviewed journal in economics, business, management and social sciences requires contributors to comply to their specific APA formats for accepting an article for review. So, I decided that you will use the JRIT instructions to write your paper. The complete details of it are in a separate document entitled APA-Style-JRIT that is in the Blackboard course shell. Use this JRIT APA style format and style for titles, subtitles, tables, figures, paragraphs, font size, references, footnotes, all sections including the abstract. This document follows the JRIT APA format.

When describing the Demand or Supply or the market structure of the firm (industry) of your choice, I expect you will use key economics concepts learned in this class, mainly the concepts learned/discussed in the first three weeks. The list below contains the most relevant concepts you may use:

• Law of demand, law of diminishing marginal utility

• Law of supply, law of diminishing returns (increasing marginal costs)

• Market equilibrium

• Consumer surplus and producer surplus

• Substitutes and Complements in Consumption

• Substitutes and Complements in Production

• Price elasticity

• Income elasticity

• Opportunity cost, explicit costs, implicit costs, sunk costs

• Total cost, variable costs, fixed costs, average total cost, average variable costs, average fixed costs, marginal costs

• Breakeven price, short run profit, long run profit

• Profit maximization, marginal cost = marginal benefit

• Price taker markets (Perfect competition)

• Price searcher markets (Oligopoly, Monopoly, Monopolistic Competition)

You will have the opportunity to self-select the firm or industry of your preference and the topic of research, Demand/Supply or market structure. You will also have the freedom to choose the paper you want to give your peer review in a first-come-first-serve format. If a paper has already a feedback, find another one.

The activities per week and due dates are as follow:

The paper itself counts 85% of the grade and I will grade only the final paper submitted at the end of week 4.

The peer review component counts 15% of the grade. So, feedback is not a free activity, but I will not grade that part. Students and peers evaluate it!

• The student that provides the feedback has the opportunity to self-evaluate the quality of his own input (5% of the grade for the giver)

• The student that receives feedback has the opportunity to evaluate the quality of the feedback received (10% of the grade for the giver)

Grading details in the section below.

Assessment and Grading

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