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 Attendance
 Cheating
 Exams
 Grading
 News Reviews
 Syllabus
 Text
 Withdrawing

EXAMS: Counting the Final Exam, there will be three exams during the course. The exams will be partly multiple choice and partly short essay, except that the Final Exam will be all multiple choice. The Final Exam will be comprehensive and it will have the same weight as the other exams.  Make-up exams for the final exam will be allowed in documented cases of illness, death in your immediate family, or work conflict. If you do not notify me by May 10, 2000, that you will need to make up the final exam, I will have no choice but to give you a zero for the final exam. Make-up exams may be partly or entirely essay, at my discretion.

NEWS REVIEWS (+): You will be expected to submit eight news reviews during this course. The reviews will be due on the Thursdays indicated by the plus sign (+). The purpose of these reviews is to prod you to be aware of the events that are occurring in the international economics. We may discuss events in class as they are reported or when the reviews are turned in. Each review must be based on an article which

• is at least 60 lines long (at about 35 to 40 characters per line, about 40 lines long if you use CNNfn's "printer-friendly" format),

• appeared in the Wall Street Journal or on www.cnnfn.com,

• appeared between the date due and the Friday 13 days before that date,

• relates to a topic in the course and offers a good level of insight, analysis or depth. In the Wall Street Journal, good articles for our purposes are usually found on page A2 (the Economy) or in Section C, but they may be anywhere in the paper. On www.cnnfn.com, a good place to look is under economy or world business or special reports.  Examples of good topics are articles dealing with
  • the WTO negotiations,
  • the admission of China into the WTO,
  • trade disputes between countries over tariffs, dumping, etc.,
  • changes in U.S. customs laws, or foreign customs laws,
  • special problems that firms face when they trade beyond their borders (stories about foreign businesses operating within their home country would not be good topics, however),
  • how exchange rate changes have affected a firm's business,
  • the effect of interest rates on exchange rates,
  • the difficulties of coordinating economic policies in the EU, or other groups,
  • foreign investments,
  • efforts of a less developed country to increase its exports or attract investment,
Examples of bad articles are
  • the common articles that report that the trade balance, or the value of the dollar, etc., rose or fell with no more than a single line of explanation. (For example, "The dollar rose yesterday against most major currencies on interest rate fears." or "The Commerce Department reported yesterday that the U.S. trade balance rose during January.")
  • articles about business conditions in a foreign country without mentioning the international aspects of the issue.  For example,  "Canada reported that its GDP rose for the third straight quarter." or "The French auto maker, Peugeot-Citroën, is having labor troubles."

The reviews must include

• a photocopy or printout of the article,

• the date that the article appeared,

• a typed summary of the article (about ½ to one page, 12 point, double spaced),

• a typed explanation of how the article relates to a topic in the course (about ½ to one page, 12 point, double spaced). Be explicit--relate the article to a chapter or page in the text. For example, you might say "This article relates to the discussion on page 312 of the conditionality provisions that the IMF imposes on countries that borrow from their credit tranches at the IMF...."
 

The reviews will be graded on the basis of

• the relevance of the article to the course,

• how well you summarize the main points of the article,

• how well you explain its relationship to the course,

• technical presentation of the report. (Was it neatly typed? Were proper spelling and grammar used? Was the photocopy or printout included?)

GRADING: Your grade for the course will be determined by a simple average of four things: your two in-class exam scores, your final exam score, and sum of your eight news review scores. The weights are as follows:
 

ATTENDANCE: Attendance is not required except at exams.  Except for the most extreme cases, there will be no make-ups.  Attendance per se is not considered when calculating you grade.  However, I strongly recommend that you do attend.  Some exam questions will be similar to topics discussed in class.  In borderline situations, attendance and class participation may be used to determine your grade.

CHEATING: Cheating on exams may be grounds for failing the course.  Note the definition of cheating in the Student Handbook includes copying from another student's work and allowing your work to be copied.

WITHDRAWING: Students sometimes need to withdraw from class for a variety of reasons.  The deadline to withdraw with grades of "W" from some, but not all, of your classes is March 17, 2000.  If you are going to withdraw from all of your remaining classes for this term ("withdrawing from the University") the deadline is April 20, 2000.  BE SURE TO FILE THE FORM TO WITHDRAW.  If you simply stop coming to class, you will get 0s for all missed exams and projects and probably an "F" for the course.