The economic models of supply and demand are powerful tools. But they are of little use if we cannot apply them in context. This assignment asks you to do just thatapply the economic models to a policy debate, preparing a brief for a decision maker. The topic for this assignment is the U.S. Opioid Epidemic.

 

But economic theory in the absence of contextualizing data lacks influence. We need data to help understand the problem were trying to deal with. How big of a problem are we trying to solve? Whats the scope? What are the background numbers? Why do we even care about the issue? How many people may be impacted by the proposed policy? Who might be impacted? Are the changes in policy large or small? How do we know? What regions might be most impacted? What are the opportunity costs (i.e. forgone policy possibilities)? This assignment will expose you to useful data sources for providing context to your arguments.

 

Learning Goals

This assignment is intended to help students learn:

to apply economic models to real-world debates

to present economic analysis in text and figures

to identify sources of basic data on the country, state, county, or city level

to judiciously choose data to make the strongest case possible

to present data in text, table, and chart

 

Task

This assignment asks you to take on the role of a policy advisor for a public official. Your boss (thats the public official!) will soon have to cast a vote for or against a specific proposal relating to how to deal with the Opioid Crisis. They have asked you to prepare a 500-1000 word policy brief which gives them background information that they will use to take a position on the policy. Knowing of your fantastic economics training, they have asked you to include an analysis (using economic models) of the causal effects of adopting the policy as predicted by economic theory.

 

Assignment Details

Locate a current news report or article discussing the policy. State the problem clearly.

Identify the scope of the problem.

You must provide background information, including at least one data table (of your own construction), of what the issue being addressed is, and how big of an issue it is

Your brief must include at least one data graph (i.e. Supply and Demand) of your own construction. (Excel makes nice graphs, but you may use other software or draw freehand.)

Your brief must include a figure demonstrating theoretical predications on how the policy will work, and what the impacts of it are

 

What You Will Turn In

1) Your policy brief (min 500-1,000 words)

2) Copies of the data tables from which you drew the data with some indication of what data were used if the source includes multiple variables, years, etc.