Posted: June 4th, 2015

demonstrate their understanding of how market outcomes differ when firms have market power, government affects outcomes or externalities are present along with demonstrating their understanding of the demand/supply model.

Purpose: Students will demonstrate their understanding of how market outcomes differ when firms have market power, government affects outcomes or externalities are present along with demonstrating their understanding of the demand/supply model. Given an example(s) from the film Food Inc, students are asked to evaluate possible solutions to a current problem.

FORMAT: Your paper will be submitted as a file in Canvas Assignments. Note that it should be in 12 pt font and double spaced. Length will be no less than two pages and no more than three pages (excluding the citation page). Please follow APA citation format. Files should be saved and uploaded as word documents or .pdf files

Assignment:

The film Food Inc. examines the role of corporations, governments and consumers play in interactions with our food economy. Take a scene or a theme depicted in the film and use economic analysis (Mankiw) to evaluate a problem that stems from the current food industry. Address potential solutions to the problem you have described.

You are required to use the following sources for your paper:

1) Food, Inc. [videorecording] / Magnolia Pictures ; Participant Media ; River Road Entertainment present ; Developed with American Documentary, Inc. ; Perfect Meal, LLC. ; a film by Robert Kenner (The film is available in the BC library http://bellevue.library.ctc.edu/vwebv/holdingsInfo?searchId=158&recCount=20&recPointer=0&bibId=75998 or via Netflix.

2) Mankiw: relevant chapters*

3) One journalistic article or web source (you pick) that further elaborates on the theme or scene you are using for your essay. The article must be current (within the last three months)

For your paper, briefly describe the problem you will consider for this paper. *Use your textbook (ch. 10-11), along with contrasting market structures and costs (13-17) to show your understanding of how these problems can be evaluated. You will want to rely on your understanding of demand and supply as well (chapters 4-8). You have the opportunity to select from your textbook and don’t need to use all the chapters above.

The film is meant to provide support for the theory and concepts you are explaining to understand the problem and potential solutions. I do not want a summary of a scene or the film in general. The film should be used to provide examples that will support your view of certain events have happened in the food and related industries.

In your essay, you may want to use terminology like externalities, public goods, free riders, social and private benefits & costs, efficiency, equity, collusion, competition, profits, fixed & variable costs, marginal revenue and marginal costs, elasticity, dead weight losses, shifts in demand and supply, market outcomes, and regulation. You can also use other terms not listed but they should be areas that we have or will cover in this class. Every time you use our textbook terminology, be sure that you have defined it in your own words , put it in bold font and reference the page. Whenever, you takesupport from the film, reference it, in the body of your paper as well as at the end.

You may want to show your analysis graphically (with demand and supply or cost curves) as well as explain in words. You don’t have to provide graph but if you do, it doesn’t count towards word length and must be included in the same file as the rest of your essay.