Mar 28, 2024  
2022-2023 General Catalog 
    
2022-2023 General Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Add to Pathway (opens a new window)

ECN 120 - Principles of Macroeconomics


Last Date of Approval: Fall 2019

3 Credits
Total Lecture Hours: 45
Total Lab Hours: 0
Total Clinical Hours: 0
Total Work-Based Experience Hours: 0

Course Description:
This course is an introduction to the general field of economics, description and analysis of the American economic system, national income accounting, modern employment theory, fiscal policy, monetary policy, and economic growth. This course will help students become financially literate in economic statistics and policies. This course will prepare students for careers in business and accounting.

Recommended(s): his course serves as an introduction to the field, with no former economics coursework required. Economics courses at Iowa Central are not sequenced, so you may take Macroeconomics ECN 120, or Microeconomics ECN 130 in any order. There is a small amount of overlap between courses as each begins with the most basic principles.
Prerequisites/Corequisites: None

Mode(s) of Instruction: traditional/face-to-face, virtual

Credit for Prior Learning: There are no Credit for Prior Learning opportunities for this course.

Course Fees: ebook/Access Code: $119.99 (charged once per term for all courses that use Cengage Unlimited)

Common Course Assessment(s): All courses have common assessments.

Student Learning Outcomes and Objectives:
Student Learning Outcomes:

  • Assess opportunity cost and tradeoffs in making choices about how to use scarce resources.
  • Analyze the role of markets and prices in the U.S. economy
  • Explain why societies develop economic systems, identify the basic features of economic systems, and analyze the major features of the US economy.
  • Analyze the role of core economic institutions and incentives in the US economy.
  • Analyze how the U.S. economy functions as a whole and describe selected macroeconomic measures of economic activity.
  • Explain the importance of productivity and analyze how specialization, division of labor, investment in physical and human capital, and technological change affect productivity and global trade.

Course Objectives: In this course students will:

  • Be able to explain what an economic principle is and how economic principles are obtained
  • Be able to understand and interpret a production possibilities curve
  • Develop an understanding of demand and supply, their interaction, and the result of government intervention
  • Understand why self-interest is a driving force of capitalism
  • Understand GDP, its components, and its relationship to consumption, investment, government expenditure, and net exports
  • Be able to state what determines the amount of goods and services produced and the level of employment in the Keynesian theory
  • Be able to distinguish between discretionary and nondiscretionary fiscal policy
  • Be able to explain the quantitative controls of monetary policy
  • Be able to explain economic growth and why it is important to any economy



Add to Pathway (opens a new window)