Reference no: EM133196553 , Length: 4 Pages

Assignment:

Instructions:

1. You are asked to write an analytical essay that responds to the proposition below. You must take a position to agree or disagree with the proposition. You must defend your position using appropriate tools from this class, including but not limited to the concepts and tools of (1) supply and demand, (2) tax incidence and (3) the price elasticity of demand.

2. What you will need to do to complete this assignment is to draw on your own paper the appropriate supply and demand diagram(s) (for your own use, not to turn in) and write up the results in MS Word in easy to understand language. In fact, you should adopt the style of a major newspaper journalist (not editorialist) so your ideas are clear and persuasive to your readers. Your essay should be written in an easy to understand language.

3. Words like "I think" and "I believe" and purely normative arguments are unacceptable. Be analytical by citing facts and analytical references. Do not include normative opinions and references to the normative opinion of others.

4. You must directly cite all references you use and if you use the words of others they must be in quotes and referenced to the page of the reference. Failure to do this will result in a presumption of academic dishonesty.

5. Do not use the work of any other student past or present.

6. While I have no pre-set length for you write up, it would be hard for me to believe that you could do a thoughtful write-up that is less than two pages.

Proposition:

"Taxes levied on goods and services always cause harm and distort the efficient operation of the economy and therefore should not be levied."

Learning Objectives:

1. Begin thinking about this problem by visualizing a market diagram with an upward sloping supply and downward sloping demand curves. Now visualize a tax levied on the suppliers of a product.

2. Taxes are levied on either the buyers of a product or the sellers of a product. Economists argue that it doesn't matter whether you tax the buyer or the seller since the end result is the same. This suggests that legislative tax policy may not achieve its desired intent due to the working of the market and what is known as tax shifting.