Course:FRE502
| Topics in Food Market Analysis | |
|---|---|
 | |
| FRE 502 | |
| Section: | |
| Instructor: | Dr. Carol McAusland |
| Email: | carol.mcausland@ubc.ca |
| Office: | MCML 337 |
| Office Hours: | Wed 2:30‐3:30; Fri 2-3 |
| Class Schedule: | Mon/Wed 1:00-2:30 pm |
| Classroom: | MCML 154 |
| Important Course Pages | |
| Syllabus | |
| Lecture Notes | |
| Assignments | |
| Course Discussion | |
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
UBC’s Point Grey Campus is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) people. The land it is situated on has always been a place of learning for the Musqueam people, who for millennia have passed on their culture, history, and traditions from one generation to the next on this site.
COURSE TITLE
FRE 502: Topics in Food Market Analysis
COURSE INFORMATION
Session and term: 2024W1
Class location: MacMillan 154
Class times: Monday, Wednesday 13:00-14:30
Credits: [3]
Prerequisites: MFRE courses required in your first semester, or permission of the instructor.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course teaches students how to utilitize theoretical and econometric models from International, Environmental, and Public Economics and answer questions related to trade in agri-food and environmentally‐sensitive products, environmental externalities and regulation, and consumer markets for impure public goods (e.g. Certified Organic products).
INSTRUCTOR INFORMATION
Instructor: Carol McAusland
Phone: 604–822–3350
Office location: MacMillan 337
Email: carol.mcausland@ubc.ca
Office hours: Wednesday, 14:30-15:30, MCML 154; Zoom, Friday 2-3 pm; by appointment
COURSE INSTRUCTOR BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT
Dr. McAusland is Professor of Food & Resource Economics in the Faculty of Land & Food Systems. She has been teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in the areas of Environmental Economics, International Economics, Food Consumption Economics, and Statistics since the last millennium. She has held elected positions as the Chair of the Canadian Resource & Environmental Economics Association and member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics. She has served as the Co‐Editor of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (JEEM) and on the editorial boards of the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics and JEEM.
OTHER INSTRUCTIONAL STAFF
Juan Fercovic will be your resource for course materials and for grading‐related issues.
COURSE STRUCTURE
Students enrolled in this course will engage in numerous activities: attending lectures, completing problems sets, preparing background reports, and engaging in a policy‐related debate.
SCHEDULE OF TOPICS
- Environmental Economics Part I
- Externalities & Internalities
- Pigouvian Taxes
- Simple Trade Model & Policy
- Excess Supply & Demand
- Tariffs, Subsidies and Quotas
- Causes and Consequences of International Trade
- Topics: i. Comparative Advantage; ii. Love of Variety, Firm Heterogeneity and Market Power; iii. Gravity
- Policies: i. Non‐Tariff Barriers (VERs, Procurement Rules, Anti‐Dumping); ii. Trade Agreements
- Why do economists love trade, while others hate it? i. Winners and losers; ii. Trade Liberalization in a Distorted Economy
- Environmental Economics Part II
- Marginal Cost of Abatement
- Beyond Pigouvian Taxes: other policies including Cap and Trade
- Deep Dive: Carbon Policy & Leakage
- Consumers and Impure Public Goods
- Divestment & Boycotts
- Charges vs. Subsidies
- Offsets: i. Pollution Penance; ii. Rebound; iii. Additionality
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Students completing this course will be able to use tools of International, Environmental and Public Economics to
- predict how trade and non‐trade policies will affect
- consumer and producer welfare,
- the flow of goods across borders, and
- the intensity of polluting activity and resource use within affected jurisdictions
- forecast how environmental policies will alter
- household welfare and industry profitability
- trade flows
- international distribution of carbon emissions
- evaluate the effectiveness of consumer‐related actions to address
- pollution from agricultural production
- fossil fuel extraction and consumption
Students will also hone their skills in
- public speaking
- evaluating evidence
- formulating arguments to defend and critique policy initiatives
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
Classroom meetings will be a combination of lecture and practice using analytical tools.
There will be three types of assessment activities: policy debates, examinations, and one coding assignment.
For the policy debates, students will work in teams to do a deep dive into a specific policy question, assemble and analyze existing evidence to argue‐‐‐in writing and verbally‐‐‐for or against a specified policy proposal. Teams will debate their researched topic in front of an audience of peers during the last two weeks of the semester.
Examinations serve two purposes: (a) incentivize students to gain facility with the analytical tools taught in class and (b) provide feedback as to where mastery has/has not been achieved. To help students prepare for examinations, practice questions with worked solutions will be made available. Students will also be given opportunities to solve practice problems during meeting times, with solutions presented in real‐time.
Students are invited to use Piazza (https://piazza.com/ubc.ca/winterterm12024/fre_v5020012024w1) to propose debate topics as well as discuss course content.
LEARNING MATERIALS
Available at Canvas: http://www.canvas.ubc.ca. You are required to regularly login to your course page
for FRE 502. Your syllabus, course‐lecture slides, additional material, announcements, assignments, and grades will be available there.
ASSESSMENTS
| Date/Deadline | Percent of Grade | |
|---|---|---|
| Propose Debate Motions | Wed Sept 11, 2024 | |
| Debate Motions Announced | Fri Sept 13, 2024 | |
| Rank‐order Motions | Sept 14‐16, 2024 | |
| Debate Teams Announced | Wed Sept 18, 2024 | |
| Submit Workplan | Wed Sept 25, 2024 | |
| Submit Outline | Wed Oct 9, 2024 | |
| Assignment Distributed | Mon Oct 21, 2024 | |
| Midterm | Wed Oct 23, 2024 | 23% |
| Assignment Due | Wed Oct 30, 2024 | 8% |
| Mid‐project Peer Evaluations | Tues Nov 5, 2024 | |
| Submit Slide Decks + Bibliographies | Mon November 18, 2024 | 12% |
| In‐Class Summaries | Wed November 20, 2024 | 20% |
| Live Debates | Nov 25 – Dec 4, 2024 | 12% |
| Questions for Classmates’Debates | 1% | |
| Experiment | Date TBD | 1% |
| Final Exam | Date TBD | 23% |
| Total | 100% |
Description of Evaluations
The Debates and Slide Decks are team activities, for which each student’s grade will be based partially or entirely on individual contributions, as specified in the detailed instructions for each activity.
Academic honesty
Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. The minimum penalty for any incident of academic dishonesty will be an automatic grade of zero in the relevant course requirement. You may have additional marks subtracted from your class grade, receive a failing grade in the course, and be reported to the faculty for further disciplinary action.
UNIVERSITY POLICIES
UBC provides resources to support student learning and to maintain healthy lifestyles but recognizes that sometimes crises arise and so there are additional resources to access including those for survivors of sexual violence. UBC values respect for the person and ideas of all members of the academic community. Harassment and discrimination are not tolerated nor is suppression of academic freedom. UBC provides appropriate accommodation for students with disabilities and for religious observances. UBC values academic honesty and students are expected to acknowledge the ideas generated by others and to uphold the highest academic standards in all of their actions.
Details of the policies and how to access support are available on the UBC Senate website.
Academic Accommodation for Students
The University accommodates students with disabilities who have registered with the Disability Resource Centre. The University also accommodates students whose religious obligations conflict with attendance or scheduled tests or exams. Other absences for varsity athletics, family obligations or other similar commitments are not part of University policy and students should not assume that they would be accommodated. Academic accommodations help students with a disability or ongoing medical condition overcome challenges that may affect their academic success. Students requiring academic accommodations must register with Access & Diversity. A&D will determine that student's eligibility for accommodations in accordance with Policy 73: Academic Accommodation for Students with Disabilities. Your instructors do not determine academic accommodations, however, your instructor may consult with Access and Diversity should the accommodations affect the essential learning outcomes of a course. If you have a pressing issue those conflicts with an exam, you should discuss this with your instructor as soon as possible. Refer to the UBC Calendar for details of ‘academic concession’.
Academic Integrity
The academic enterprise is founded on honesty, civility, and integrity. As members of this enterprise, all students are expected to know, understand, and follow the codes of conduct regarding academic integrity.
At the most basic level, this means submitting only original work done by you and acknowledging all sources of information or ideas and attributing them to others as required. This also means you should not cheat, copy, or mislead others about what is your work. Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are wonderful tools and students are encouraged to use them as assistants, for example in debugging Rcode, spell‐ and grammer‐checking text, and searching for source materials. These tools are fallible and tend to hallucinate, however, and any errors in submitted work are entirely the student’s responsibility. Moreover, just like students are prohibited from presenting the work of others as their own without adequate attribution, they are prohibited from using LLMs to generate content, including text, that is included in submitted work. One exception: students may use LLMs to generate decorative images for inclusion in their slide decks; any such images must be adequately attributed.
Violations of academic integrity (i.e., misconduct) lead to the breakdown of the academic enterprise, and therefore serious consequences arise and harsh sanctions are imposed. For example, incidences of plagiarism or cheating may result in a mark of zero on the assignment or exam and more serious consequences may apply if the matter is referred to the President’s Advisory Committee on Student Discipline. Careful records are kept in order to monitor and prevent recurrences.
For International Students ‐ Issue of controversial topics in online learning
During this pandemic, the shift to online learning has greatly altered teaching and studying at UBC, including changes to health and safety considerations. Keep in mind that some UBC courses might cover topics that are censored or considered illegal by non‐Canadian governments. This may include, but is not limited to, human rights, representative government, defamation, obscenity, gender or sexuality, and historical or current geopolitical controversies. If you are a student living abroad, you will be subject to the laws of your local jurisdiction, and your local authorities might limit your access to course material or take punitive action against you. UBC is strongly committed to academic freedom, but has no control over foreign authorities (please visit http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/vancouver/index.cfm?tree=3,33,86,0 for an articulation of the values of the University conveyed in the Senate Statement on Academic Freedom).
Thus, we recognize that students will have legitimate reason to exercise caution in studying certain subjects. If you have concerns regarding your personal situation, consider postponing taking a course with manifest risks, until you are back on campus or reach out to your academic advisor to find substitute courses. For further information and support, please visit: http://academic.ubc.ca/supportresources/freedom‐expression
HEALTH CONCERNS AND DEBATE PARTICIPATION
All written work will be submitted via Canvas, including homework assignments and Slide Decks. Debates will take place in‐person unless at least one member of one of the debating teams is unavailable to attend in‐person for health / quarantine reasons. Depending on the situation, the debate may take place as a hybrid or fully‐online event. In the event where one team member is ill, the debate will be rescheduled to December. In the event of extreme weather events or asymptomatic illness (professor), lectures and debtes will be conducted online. Students will be given at least 24 hours notice (where possible). If the instructor is unavailable, if possible the instructor will produce video‐taped versions of lecture materials to be screened during regularly scheduled lecture time (or viewed at a student’s convenience), and the TA will supervise in‐person debates at regularly scheduled times. In the case of extreme illness, videolectures will be provided at a later date (and perused at students’ convenience) and/or a substitute instructor will provide in‐person lectures.
COPYRIGHT & REMOTE PARTICIPATION
All materials of this course (course handouts, lecture slides, assessments, course readings, etc.) are the intellectual property of the Course Instructor or licensed to be used in this course by the copyright owner. Redistribution of these materials by any means without permission of the copyright holder(s) constitutes a breach of copyright and may lead to academic discipline.
All students are expected to attend lectures in‐person. With prior permission, a student who is mildly ill and/or in asymptomatic quarantine may request a zoom link and attend lecture in real‐time. With prior permission, a student who is seriously ill‐‐‐and so unable to participate remotely in real‐time‐‐‐may request that the lecture be recorded for later review. While we will do our best to offer live‐streaming and video capture as per the preceding scenarios, note that technologies sometime fail, so existence of a videorecording is not guaranteed. Posting or distributing recordings of FRE 502 lectures by anyone other than the instructor or TA is strictly prohibited.