Assignment Specifications
This assignment task is a written analysis of any published news story (newspaper, magazine or website) from 01 July 2022 and onwards. Your task is to analyze and interpret an ordinary event using your knowledge of economic principles. You will be required to apply the economic concepts you have learned in class to interpret events reported in your news story.
Task 1: Choose an international news story. Register your news story by sending an email to your Lecturer for approval. The first come, first served rule will apply. No two persons can use the same story for the assignment. Sending incomplete information will mean automatic rejection of your topic.
The email to your Lecturer should state:
a. HC1072 Individual Assignment by Name, Student ID
b. Full Article Name/Full Title
c. Date Published and Author/Writer
A response will be sent. It will indicate, APPROVED or NOT APPROVED.
Do not start your work unless you have the email response. A deduction of 10% will be applied if you submit your work without pre-approval. Ensure that a full printed copy of your article
is saved as part of the Appendix of your paper. A deduction of 5% will be applied if the printed copy is not provided for the marker to read.
Task 2: Microeconomic Analysis
In this part of your assessment, you will analyze the event reported in your chosen article based on microeconomic concepts learned in class. Ensure a full printout/clear picture of the news story is in the appendix as the marker will need to read to check the validity of your analysis.
Refer to the below table for the specific task details and some guide questions for your analysis.
Recommended Assignment Structure Part 1: Introduction:
Part 2: Event description
a) Elaborate on the event being reported in your chosen article. Why did you choose to analyze this event?
b) Who are the parties involved? Identify who is the supplier and who is the consumer in the event.
Part 3: Firm description
a) What are the products and services being sold?
b) What is the significance to the international economy of the product/service?
Part 4: Industry Description
a) Characterize the size of the industry and the level of competition.
b) Identify the regulator/s of the industry. Comment on the extent of the regulator’s
power to ensure compliance within the industry.
Part 5: Market Structure Analysis
a) Identify the Market Structure in the industry.
b) Discuss how market structure influences the prices in the industry.
Part 6: Microeconomic Analysis Demand and Supply
In this part of your paper, you are required to discuss the Demand and Supply interactions.
a) Demand
• What are the Determinants of Market Demand for your chosen event?
• How do these determinants affect Total Demand?
b) Supply
• What are the Determinants of Market Supply for your chosen event?
• How do these determinants affect Total Supply?
c) In this part of your paper, you are required to discuss the Demand and Supply interactions. Analyze any shortage or surplus situation, if applicable.
d) Competitors and who is the major competitor in the market?
e) Characterize the elasticity of the product being analyzed. Who bears the cost of any price increase?
Student Assessment and Referencing Rules
Adapted Harvard Referencing Rules
Holmes has implemented a revised Harvard approach to referencing. The following rules apply:
1. Reference sources in assignments are limited to sources which provide full text access to the
source’s content for lecturers and markers.
2. The reference list must be located on a separate page at the end of the essay and titled:
“References”.
3. The reference list must include the details of all the in-text citations, arranged A-Z alphabetically by author surname with each reference numbered (1 to 10, etc.) and each reference MUST include a hyperlink to the full text of the cited reference source. For example:
1. Hawking, P., McCarthy, B. & Stein, A. 2004. Second Wave ERP Education, Journal of Information Systems Education, Fall, http://jise.org/Volume15/n3/JISEv15n3p327.pdf
4. All assignments must include in-text citations to the listed references. These must include the surname of the author/s or name of the authoring body, year of publication, page number of the content, and paragraph where the content can be found. For example, “The company
decided to implement an enterprise-wide data warehouse business intelligence strategy
(Hawking et al., 2004, p3(4)).”
Non-Adherence to Referencing Rules
Where students do not follow the above rules:
(i) For students who submit assignments that do not comply with the rules, a 10% penalty will be applied.
(ii) Students who comply with rules and the citations are “fake” will be reported for academic
misconduct.
To be eligible to pass this unit, you must complete all forms of assessment and demonstrate achievement of the learning outcomes. All assignments must be submitted electronically ONLY using a word processor, and uploaded to Blackboard via the Final Check and Submission of SafeAssign.
As per the Student Handbook, late penalties will apply each day after the student/s has been notified of the due date. Submission deadlines are strictly enforced and a late submission incurs penalties of 5 (five) % of the assessment value per calendar day unless an extension and/or special consideration has been granted by the lecturer prior to the assessment deadline. Unless an extension and/or special consideration has been granted, no assessments are accepted after 14 calendar days of the due date, or the end of the trimester for assessments due later in a trimester. Students need to allow up to 24 hours for the Final Check of their assignment submission to SafeAssign to be available