California National University Panel Consensus and Econometric Method Discussion

Course Paper: A research paper on managerial economics is required for this course. The course paper must be at least 10 pages in length double spaced. You are encouraged to contact me during the first week of the course regarding the topic and objective of the course paper. You may write about any of the three specific topics listed below or conduct a Market Analysis for an area of your interest.

For your paper, you may choose one of the three areas indicated below or choose to conduct a market analysis for a market of your choosing, approved by your professor. Feel free to ask for additional interpretation of that information or of the following alternative.

Select any one of these three topics for your course paper. Empirical papers with data analysis will receive maximum credit.

ØGovernment Regulation and Commercial Banking

ØThe Impact of Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 on Commercial Banking

ØSmart Phones: A Comparative Analysis of Apple and Samsung

Managerial Economics is applied microeconomics; therefore, a macroeconomic focus will not be accepted for your course paper. Importantly, data analysis, charts and graphs will enhance the quality of your paper. I will be happy to review the progress of your paper and provide inputs if you contact me with an outline before the end of first week.

How to organize your paper: First, select a topic and an appropriate title of your paper. To do so, conduct a literature review on the topic of your paper. Google or other search engines, scholarly books and relevant journal articles may help you conduct a literature review. Second, specify the objective of your paper. Usually, this is the most difficult part. Be specific and reasonable. You cannot address too many issues within the confine a short course paper. That is why reviewing works of other authors may help you address an area which has not been covered previously.

Your paper should be organized into the following five sections:

1.Introduction and Objective

2.Literature Review

3.Analysis

4.Summary and Conclusions

5.References (must be linked to the Works Cited in the body of the paper)

National University style guidelines require that you use the American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines for formatting your paper and for referencing.

If choosing the Market Assessment, you should organize your paper as follows:

1 Your Demand Curve

a) What does it look like and what affects it (related things)?

b) What is its elasticity?

c) What differntiates your product, if anything, from others?

d) What problem does your product solve for customers?

e) What businesses should we be in?

2 Market Facing Strategy

a) Who are your customers

b) How will you reach them?

c) What advertising/ social media/ etc MUST you have?

d) How will you sell to them? Directly? Through a Channel?

e) How should we compete in these businesses: product differentiator or cost leader?

3 Structure of Your Market

a) NAICS/ SICs

b) # of players

c) Barriers to entry/ uniqueness/

4 What are the government and regulatory considerations

a) Is the good dangerous/ environmentally damaging

b) What good does this good threaten?

c) Does the government have any regulations or policy wrt this good?

d) What taxes/ licenses/ legal issues exist for it?

5 Your Production Function and Costs

a) What resources do you have/need?

b) What technology are you using?

c) What is optimal size?

d) What is likely cost estimate?

Written Assignment Grading Standards	Points
Grammar, Punctuation, and Spelling	10
APA style for citations and no sign of plagiarism*	10
Clarity of objective, conclusion and strong connection between introduction and conclusion	40
Economic analysis using economic principles	20
Empirical evidence that supports economic analysis	10
Overall quality of the paper	10
Total	100

* If plagiarism is detected, your course paper grade is automatically 0. However, it may escalate to a more severe penalty. Refer to National University catalog for policy description on plagiarism.

1. Use Times New Roman font size 11 or 12 and double space your paper.

2. Information on APA style is available at our Library, http://nuls.nu.edu/web/trainingtools/assets/media/APA.pdf or http://library.nu.edu/FindResources/ReferenceTools/citations.html.

3. Refereed papers are academic papers that were critiqued and reviewed by experts before being published. More information can be found in http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/academic/sources/journals/index.html

http://www.yukoncollege.yk.ca/~agraham/guides/guidec.shtml. Internet articles and newspaper articles are NOT usually academic articles that fill the bill as a valid reference.

4. To find the academic articles that you need for your paper (at least one), go to the following full text databases in our library: Business Source Premier (EBSCO), Emerald Management Xtra, LexisNexis Academic, ProQuest Databases and ProQuest Dissertations and Thesis. These databases are in http://library.nu.edu/FindResources/ResourceFinder.cfm. Databases have different sources or information, and you always have to combine them. Economists would say that databases are complements rather than substitutes, in other words, try more than one database.

5.Submit your essay under “Course Paper” link in Week Three on or before the due date. Use Microsoft Word software when you attach a file. Word files in .doc format work best as attachment for your course paper.

6. After your instructor reads and scores your paper, the comments and the score will be available to you in your Inbox. You can read those Instructor Feedback comments in your Inbox or Gradebook with your paper. Be sure to click on the “+” box to fully open the comments box.