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AQA ECON3 3rd June 2014

Just thought I'd start a thread on this exam because I couldn't find one. How is everyone finding revision? Any predictions as to what will come up in the exam? I think poverty is a strong possibility :smile:

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Something on inequality would be just too good with knowledge of Piketty's book.

EDIT: Shameless bump also, need more A2 economists up in this now AS resits are over. :colondollar:
Let the econ3 revision begin!
Goodluck with Econ3, hopefully market structures / negative externalities come up. That would be my dream combo!
Reply 4
I hope oligopolies and distribution of income and wealth/poverty/cost benefit analysis. All my favs. I hate externalities I find them so confusing :smile:
Original post by louisehatton
I hope oligopolies and distribution of income and wealth/poverty/cost benefit analysis. All my favs. I hate externalities I find them so confusing :smile:


What do you find confusing about them? Considering its just a repeat of the AS syllabus I find it usually very easy.
Reply 6
Original post by PaulKrugman
What do you find confusing about them? Considering its just a repeat of the AS syllabus I find it usually very easy.


I didn't really understand them from AS so perhaps thats where I went wrong. I can do the environmental externalities because I find it easy when its a real world situation. I didn't understand the marginal social benefit, private benefit, private cost, social cost diagrams etc...
Neither do I, I understand the theory of externalities, but applying it has me stumped. Some data responses are okay, but others have me going
Original post by PaulKrugman
Something on inequality would be just too good with knowledge of Piketty's book.

EDIT: Shameless bump also, need more A2 economists up in this now AS resits are over. :colondollar:


I've heard of the book but haven't read it yet.

Would you mind summarising the points that might be useful to put in an distribution of income essay?
Reply 9
Could someone give me 4 advantage of regulations as well disadvantages. Also 4 Dis and AD for deregulation/leaving the market to competition
I'm really struggling to find examples of a private pure monopoly. Anyone know any? (actual names)
haven't really started revision for this yet :P

meh, i find econ 4 really easy and my average from econ 1 and 2 is 85% so I can afford to drop as low as maybe 65% on econ 3 so fingers crossed! I don't really like econ 3 though, find it boring compared to econ 4 :frown:
Reply 12
I'm not looking forward to it. I am much stronger on macro-economics.

I'm hoping the data response and essay choice are either competitive markets, concentrated markets or objectives, cost and revenues.
Reply 13
Original post by BankOfPigs
I've heard of the book but haven't read it yet.

Would you mind summarising the points that might be useful to put in an distribution of income essay?


http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/05/economist-explains

A pretty good four paragraph summary with a little bit of evaluation of the other side of the argument.

To be honest using knowledge of the book and the debate surrounding it won't get you any extra marks for knowledge or application but it might help with developing some evaluative points and namedropping Piketty to prove you know more about the wider economy and you can apply economic theory theory to the real world, which examiners often reward.
How can governments intervene to get rid of barriers to entry? What policies could they use? (examples please)
Original post by ThePersian
How can governments intervene to get rid of barriers to entry? What policies could they use? (examples please)


well it depends on the industry.

It can be very hard to effectively lower barriers to entry as many industries naturally poses very high barriers.

From Tutor2U:

(Regulators can)

Open up markets: The aim here is to encourage competition by removing barriers to entry. This might be achieved by forcing the dominant firm in the industry to allow others to use its infrastructure network. A key task for the regulator is to fix a fair access price for firms wanting to use the existing infrastructure. Fair both to the existing firms and also potential challengers.




Yeah its hard. I often struggled to think of examples when doing essays :/. Maybe they could subsidise the start up of new companies to pay as much of the sunk costs as possible.

The government possesses the power to break up monopolies if it wants to so this could reduce entry barriers by restricting the economies of scale which the firms can exploit.

dunno really.

EDIT: subsidise is probably the wrong word. Things like grants and loans is what I mean, the government actually does offer these things to new businesses at the moment as well :smile:
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by stirkee
well it depends on the industry.

It can be very hard to effectively lower barriers to entry as many industries naturally poses very high barriers.

From Tutor2U:

(Regulators can)

Open up markets: The aim here is to encourage competition by removing barriers to entry. This might be achieved by forcing the dominant firm in the industry to allow others to use its infrastructure network. A key task for the regulator is to fix a fair access price for firms wanting to use the existing infrastructure. Fair both to the existing firms and also potential challengers.




Yeah its hard. I often struggled to think of examples when doing essays :/. Maybe they could subsidise the start up of new companies to pay as much of the sunk costs as possible.

The government possesses the power to break up monopolies if it wants to so this could reduce entry barriers by restricting the economies of scale which the firms can exploit.

dunno really.

EDIT: subsidise is probably the wrong word. Things like grants and loans is what I mean, the government actually does offer these things to new businesses at the moment as well :smile:


Thanks
We know that monopolies aim is to Profit Maximise which is MR=MC
But, what about nationalised state monopolies? Do they produce at MR=MC? Or do they lower price?
Original post by ThePersian
We know that monopolies aim is to Profit Maximise which is MR=MC
But, what about nationalised state monopolies? Do they produce at MR=MC? Or do they lower price?


Completely variable. If you think about it the role of the government is to maximise consumer welfare, therefore its likely to be P=MC. Sometimes they could profit maximise though to increase government income and then increase government spending (perhaps on R&D to lower LRATC).
Original post by PaulKrugman
Completely variable. If you think about it the role of the government is to maximise consumer welfare, therefore its likely to be P=MC. Sometimes they could profit maximise though to increase government income and then increase government spending (perhaps on R&D to lower LRATC).


Thanks, yeah I thought so, it probably depends on the government in power.

The government often regulates monopolies by breaking them up e.g. AT&T in 1980 by Reagan. But, do you think this leads to Oligopolies? (it pretty much has in the US with Verizon and AT&T with highest market share)

The main question I have and I've been thinking about for some time is which is actually better; A monopoly or oligopoly?
Are oligopolies dynamically efficient?

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