Honza Morawiec Posted May 5, 2013 Report Share Posted May 5, 2013 Hi,I'm currently doing my Microeconomics IA, and I need a little help here. I tried to establish a connection between an article and my IA in the beginning of my IA. However, I'm not entirely sure if my words are enough, or if I should explain it more. Can you please look at it and tell me if it is OK? My teacher advised me after my first draft that I should look at my article from the PED point of view, rather then just from the simple demand/supply point of view. But now I'm struggeling with explaining the connection to PED, and that's where I need help.Anyway, here is my article - http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Green-Cars-May-Lead-to-Higher-Taxes.html ,and here is the start of my IA - Green cars (hybrids, electric cars etc.) are nowadays cheap and useful, and therefore became a substitute to normal cars (cars running on conventional fuels such as oil and gasoline.) The price elasticity of demand for normal cars and their fuel therefore became elastic, according to the law of PED. This change of PED of conventional fuels is causing government’s tax revenue to fall.I will appreciate any comments. Thank you Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dniviE Posted May 5, 2013 Report Share Posted May 5, 2013 Sorry, the article you have chosen is unfortunately not valid - it is not from a newspaper but a weekly oil industry news outlet. Use a different source such as major news outlets such as The Guardian (guardian.co.uk), Reuters (reuters.com), BBC (bbc.co.uk), Telegraph (telegraph.co.uk), USA Today (usatoday.com). Or try searching on news.google.com for keywords of economics concepts that you are interested in writing about. Try typing in cigarette tax or air pollution or something. Good luck and check out the already existing help threads for Economics Commentaries on IBS:http://www.ibsurvival.com/topic/22435-economics-internal-assessment-evaluation-part/http://www.ibsurvival.com/topic/11573-tips-for-economics-portfolio-commentary/http://www.ibsurvival.com/topic/9088-sources-for-economics-portfolio/ 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honza Morawiec Posted May 5, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2013 Well, thank you for your quick response. My due date is tommorow, but if you are sure that my article is not valid, I'll have to consult this with my teacher anyway. Just to be sure, my IA will not be accepted if it is based on this article, am I right? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dniviE Posted May 5, 2013 Report Share Posted May 5, 2013 It is not that it can't be used, but I think that the source is horribly un-news-ish and seems very sponsored by the oil industry. Also, I cannot say that 100% sure since I am not an IB Economics examinator. The article is crap, that is the problem. I mean, they are basically claiming that taxes will be higher because of the introduction of green cars which is highly opinionated. Try to find a more 'neutral' news outlet and avoid articles that are posing strong opinions or are arguing for a certain case in general. You are supposed to consult with the teacher in the first place before you choose an article to get an "ok - this article is good enough for a commentary". If you haven't done that, then your teacher is not following the requirements that the IBO has set out for the Economics commentaries. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honza Morawiec Posted May 5, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2013 Thank you! I've had the discussion about my article, and my teacher said that it was ok. Still, I was concerned about that because I'm in the second class ever taking IB on my school, so I was worried about this. I wrote to my teacher to make sure that the article will pass in the eyes of the IB examiner.Anyway, if it will, what do you think about my connection to the article? In the rest of my IA i explain how does PED work and that since there are green cars now the tax revenues will be lower because the demand for oil will became elastic. And I try to evaluate on the options the government has and what effects it will have on the stakeholders etc. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
yii yann Posted May 5, 2013 Report Share Posted May 5, 2013 Absolutely agree with dniviE, the article just seems like one big advertisement. Just go to google news and search "microeconomics" or "price elasticity" or whatever. Also, saying that the demand for oil will suddenly become price elastic will cause you to lose a large number of marks.The demand for oil/petrol is highly inelastic. All that can happen (for now) is that it may become slightly less inelastic, but because there's a large quantity demanded, decrease in tax revenue might be significant. You need to use judgement throughout your IAs, else your teacher will just think you're copying stuff from the book and mark you down. Oh and try to include definitions at the start - shows the marker you know your stuff. Plus it makes everything seem that much more professional. 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honza Morawiec Posted May 5, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2013 Thank you very much, I don't have any experience with Eco IA so far, so I'm glad for any comments. I considered your comment on the demand suddenly becoming elastic. In my evaluation part, I mentioned that my theory applies ceteris paribus, and that there are also other determinants of PED which could change the whole situation. Also, I will add one sentence in the beggining explaining that the whole theory applies in the longer time period, when green cars would have a significant part of the car market. About the definitions, I have the definitions of Demand/Supply, Government intervention, and PED right under the text I posted, is that enough?Thank you once more for doing this for me, there are not many people to whom I could adress these questions, as most of my friends are lost the same way I am. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
difiCa Posted May 13, 2013 Report Share Posted May 13, 2013 Use definitions as you go along, if you use an economics concept, explain it right afterwards. There is no "enough", if your commentary sounds like a business journal, you probably should be using more definitions and if you do not need definitions, you should use more terminology.I think you already returned your IA, but just as a general tip, if a statement you are making is highly controversial, avoid it. 750 words is not enough for evaluating a controversial statement, so it's best to keep it simple. In addition, with the current market situation where most cars sold are conventional and most "green" cars still run on petrochemicals, saying that the PED for oil will significantly fall is somewat absurd, especially as oil is still a major source of energy for applications such as electricity production and heating, which do not really depend on cars. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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