辅导 ECON1012 Principles of Economics Semester 1 2024 Assignment 2辅导 Web开发

Assignment 2

ECON1012 Principles of Economics Semester  1 2024

Course Learning Outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5

Topic/s of Primary Focus:    Government Intervention in Markets

(May also include content from previous topics.)

Read the following article from the Nikkei Asia ‘ Philippines' Marcos announces cap on rice prices’ (1 September 2023)

https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Philippines-Marcos-announces-cap-on-rice-prices

The Philippines has imposed caps on rice prices in a bid to arrest surging costs caused by supply shortages, but analysts warn the intervention could fail to stem rising food   expenses.

The office of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced the move on Friday, following recommendations from the agriculture and trade departments. The price ceiling, which will remain in effect indefinitely, mandates a maximum price of 41 pesos ($0.72) per kilo for regular milled rice and 45 pesos ($0.79) for well-milled rice.

Prices of rice, a food staple in households across Asia, have been volatile in recent months due to extreme weather such as floods and heat waves. India, the world's largest rice exporter, has moved to restrict exports of non-basmati white rice while Thailand has rushed to shore up supplies.

Exports from Vietnam, the world's third-largest rice exporter, are skyrocketing to meet demand across the region. Some 90% of the Philippines' rice imports in 2022 came from Vietnam.

The government's intervention in rice prices comes amid decelerating consumer price growth across the country, with headline inflation slowing to 4.7% in July. Nevertheless, inflation of rice prices hit 4.2% in July this year from 1.0% in January 2022. Such high price tags disproportionately hit poor households that spend large portions of their income on food.

Nicholas Antonio Mapa, senior economist at ING Bank in Manila, argues that an official price cap is not a long-term solution to the problem of rising food costs.

"Setting of price caps in most cases may put a temporary ceiling on prices. However, such hard caps may result in the emergence of inefficiencies with regard to supply and demand, which may result in shadow or black-market trading," Mapa told Nikkei Asia.

This is the first time that Marcos imposed a price ceiling on rice since his election victory in May 2022. The son of the late dictator also serves as the country's agriculture chief.

Soaring prices of commodities are nothing new for the Philippines, as the reopening of the domestic economy in 2022 following the coronavirus pandemic revived consumer demand and pushed up prices due to pent-up demand. Staple items such as onions recorded price increases in the past year.

Leonardo Lanzona, an economist at Ateneo De Manila University in the Philippines, said the move to cap rice prices could prove "disastrous to both farmers and traders."

In the past, price caps have "resulted in greater costs to the government. Its immediate effect is to pull down production and reduce supplies in the market," he said.

"Prices will stay at the cap but unless more subsidies are provided, the long lines for rice which we last saw in the first Marcos administration will begin to sprout again," Lanzona told Nikkei.

Task:

Discuss how the price ceiling on rice imposed in the Philippines during September 2023 would be expected to impact consumers, producers, and economic efficiency.

Ensure that you use diagrams where relevant to support your answer, and make sure to use key terminology and course concepts where appropriate.

Format:

The format of your response should be an essay-style response.

You do not need subheadings or subsections.

You do not need to spend as much attention on formal essay structure as you might for a persuasive or research-based essay. Instead you should focus on communicating your ideas in a clear and concise manner and making sure there is a logical flow of ideas and explanation.

Word Limit:

800 words (excluding diagrams and references)

Diagrams:

As stated in the task, you should include diagrams where relevant. Where you use diagrams, they should be created by you. You could either draw them by hand and scan/photo them into your document. Or prepare them electronically. However, they must be your own work. You should not paste in diagrams from the internet or the textbook, even with referencing, as this will not adequately show the grader your understanding of these diagrams and models.

Referencing:

This is not a research assignment. So you do not necessarily need to find other references. You should answer the question based on what you have learned in the course and the article provided.

However, it is important that if you do take content directly from other sources including course materials, both quoting and paraphrasing, that you appropriately reference to show what is your own original thoughts and what ideas you have borrowed from others. Please refer to the https://www.adelaide.edu.au/writingcentre/resources/avoiding-plagiarismfor further guidance and links regarding referencing, plagiarism, and academic integrity.

Where referencing is used, it can be in any standard style, so long as it is consistent. The Harvard referencing style is preferred, as it is the standard in Economics and is also common in Business disciplines.

https://www.adelaide.edu.au/writingcentre/resources/referencing-guides

All submissions will be analysed with the assistance of Turnitin, checking for plagiarism against other students in the class and external sources.

Submission and Feedback

Students must submit the assignment by the due date via the electronic submission

portal on MyUni (the same page you downloaded this pdf!).

https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/How-do-I-upload-a-file-as-an- assignment-submission-in-Canvas/ta-p/274

It is students’ responsibility to ensure that it is correctly submitted by the due date. Make sure that you see and check that is says ‘Submitted’ .

Late submissions will generally *not* be accepted at all. Not even one minute late.

This might seem more strict than some of your other classes, but do keep in mind that we also have a ‘best 4 of 5’ policy on the Summative Assignments.

If you have a medical or other circumstance that you believe may allow an extension, please email the course coordinator as soon as practical, and generally this must be   before the due date has passed.

Assignments will be graded, with grades and feedback provided within MyUni approximately one week after the submission due date.

Grading

The assignment will be graded against the Assessment Criteria in the Rubric attached to the MyUni Assignment and detailed below.

Grades will be allocated in-line with the University’sgrade descriptors.

Your grade is not matter of where you ‘lost marks’, but rather the evaluation of what you have presented against the standards and the criteria.

The assessment rubric on MyUni also relates your assessment against the main criteria to achievement against Course Learning Outcomes. This is based on the assessment criteria; but is not separately relevant to the assessment grade.