Online Tutor and Assignment help – Page 3 – telegram@EM_assignments

Writing for Money

Assignment 5 – Writing for Money

You would like to earn an additional amount of income for yourself to supplement income from your primary job. You have decided to become an economic journalist. Having read about how to gather data and having read some of the best business writing out there, you are going to try to craft a publishable article. You will need to brainstorm a topic, do research, and write an engaging and enjoyable piece of business/economic journalism. Refer to your previous writings as guides to excellence. Also, feel free to see what is out there that inspires you. Your word requirement for this assignment is between 1000 and 3000 words. Your assignment will be evaluated on how engaging your topic and writing are. Strong command of grammar and the English language are expected. This assignment will count as your final writing assignment.

Programming for Data Analysis and Visualization

CA 2

Submit one single R file for the solution of the following questions as: Firstname.Surename.R
Q1.
The dataset “Power Plant” records variables which the company’s engineers believe are
important factors in the operation of the plant. The company is interested in maximising net
hourly electrical energy output (recorded as PE in the dataset). For each hour of energy
output recorded, other variable “Temperature” (AT) in the range 1.81°C and 37.11°C is
recorded.
Steps:

Run a linear regression model for PE over AT. Record the value for the slope
and take it as the actual population parameter .
For 1000 iterations:
a. Take 50 random samples from the dataset. Run the regression model and
using the expression for CI for , that we found in the lecture, find a 95%
CI for .
b. Find what percentage of the CIs generated in step 2 would contain the
that you got in step 1.

Q2.
If and are independent random samples from the Uniform distribution U(0,1), by
generating random samples find | −
| <

Q3.
If
are independent random samples from the Beta distribution (1, 1 + ), by
generating random samples for 3 different values for find

∑ ln (1 −
)

and show that the result is independent from .
b. Using the distribution in Q2, show that the result is even independent from the
distribution of
.

Advanced Studies in Econometrics

You may work in groups on the assignment, but you must write up your own answers in your own words.
Submit your outcomes in one PDF and also submit your codes so that I can implement them on my laptop.
This assignment is due on 20 May. See the course profile for information on penalties for late submission.

The Bernstein polynomial density (BPD) is given as;
f(x|θ) := X
k
j=1
θjbeta(x|j, k − j + 1) (1)

where beta(x|a, b) ∝ x
a−1
(1 − x)
b−11(x ∈ [0, 1]) denotes the PDF of Be(a, b) with a > 0 and b > and

θ ∈ ∆k−1, the k − 1 dimensional unit simplex, i.e., θ ∈ Rk

and Pk
j=1 θj = 1. By construction, we
see that the specification (1) is a weighted average of the beta densities, {beta(x|j, k − j + 1)}
k
j=1. In
order to understand that (1) is a histogram smoothing, make a diagram of {beta(x|j, k − j + 1)}
k
j=1
on the unit support in a similar fashion of Figure 8 in Kim (2015, QE) for each k ∈ {5, 7, 10}.
1

Replicate the figure on page 31 of the lecture slides on “Bayesian Methods – Computation.” In partic-
ular,

• Refer to the first two bullet points on page 29 regarding the true data generating process. Use
the CDF inversion method (pages 21 and 22) to simulate the data from the truncated normal
distribution.
• In addition, see page 30 for computational details, e.g., tuning parameters and number of iterations
for the Metropolis Hastings algorithm.
• You need to evaluate the density function (1) with different θ at each data point to implement the
Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. Observe however that you need to evaluate the beta components
only once, which may reduce computation time.
• Make a 2 by 2 figure just like the one in the lecture slides with a relevant title for each diagram
and labels for the vertical and horizontal axes, when they are informative.
• For the 95% credible band on panel (d), use the 2.5 and 97.5 percentiles at each point in the unit
interval. You may use 100 equidistant grid points for this exercise. Make sure you use different
line stiles for each different objects in the diagram so that they are visually distinguished.

Similarly, replicate the figure on page 8 of the lecture slides on “Bayesian Methods – Computation 2.”
• If your code for Problem 2 works well, you only need to modify your code slightly; see page 7 of
the lecture note.

Python data mining

Your project proposal must be typed and should be approximately one page long. The purpose of the proposal is to help you sort and summarize your project ideas, and select your most interested data mining topic for project. We will review your project proposal and make sure you are on the right track. After submitting the project proposal, you will need to discuss with me to confirm and finalize your project topic and directions at Office Hours. We will give you project feedback comments so you can complete a high-quality data mining project.In your proposal you should cover the following items:• Tentative title of the project.• Abstract for your project topic. It should be one paragraph long, and should provide a high level summary of your project and outline your main goals. What is the major data mining problem and why it is meaningful to perform data mining on this data or topic? • Brief description of project plan.1. What data sets do you plan to use? Describe the data briefly and provide the information of the data sources. We do not require significant effort on data collection and processing in this project. You can use data sets from UCI, Kaggle, or other public datasets on your interested topics, such as healthcare, energy, manufacturing, etc. 2. If you need do significant work to process raw data and convert it into the proper format for data mining. You can describe the expected data processing step.3. What programming languages do you plan to use (Matlab/Python/R)? What other machine learning tools do you also plan to use (e.g., WEKA, Tableau, SAS, etc. This is optional.) 4. How do you formulate the data mining problem? E.g., is it a classification task for discrete class labels, or a regression/prediction task for continuous response variables? You can also do both classification and regression on one dataset. For example, you can discretize continuous response variable into multiple categories (such as low, medium, high), then we can convert the problem into a classification problem, and implement classification models. 5. Note describe what exactly are you trying to predict or classify. It is critical that your problem is well-defined. 6. What data mining methods tentatively to be implemented for the project? (e.g., decision trees, KNN, Bayesian decision rules, LDA, neural networks, SVM, Neural Networks etc.) We would like you to practice different classification/prediction models on your project, and compare the performance of different models. This is just a draft plan, and you can add more models later when you make more progress on your project. 7. Indicate what types of projects you are going to do. Research project or application-based project.
Types of ProjectsThere are two main types of projects. Research Project: you can decide to do a research project, where you look at a research issue. This could be original research, but could also be something straightforward—such as an empirical evaluation of data mining methods or strategies for improving performance (e.g., a study about strategies for removing missing values, evaluate different feature selection algorithms using simulated and real-world datasets, explore recent machine learning and deep learning methods on some research data). If you would like to do research project, we could provide some research dataset for you to explore. And also provide some new data mining ideas to explore. This option mainly applies to PhD students and senior MS students with good programming skills.Application Based Project: this is the most common project format and many of you will select application-based project to explore some real-world data sets using learned data mining models and methods. You can select something interesting for data mining, practice essential data mining steps, including data preprocessing, data visualization, variable selection (optional), classification/prediction modeling, model parameter tuning, and model performance evaluation. You should make sure that your analysis is not trivial, and explore some meaning data mining tasks. For example, running a data set through WEKA and spending an hour on the analysis and then doing a quick write-up would be considered trivial. You should study the dataset, determine the issues, address any preprocessing issues, try multiple modeling techniques, and perhaps take some creative steps to try to improve the classification or predictive performance.
Project ReportEach team will complete a data mining report at the end of the semester. It is very important for everyone to learn scientific writing for technical report. This is an important skill for your future work. The project report need be well organized and clearly written. The following report sections can be taken as a reasonable template for your project report writing.• Abstract: summarizes the project and the goals of the data mining work (required)• Introduction: Introduces the project and what you are trying to do. Also include relevant information to introduce the data mining problems and why it is a meaningful topic. What are the motivations people do data mining on this topic. • Background: you may want a separate background section to provide domain information for the topic that you are studying. You can describe with citations to relevant papers, documents, or web recourses. For public datasets on an interesting topic, you can always find a lot of related work. Assume you are writing a technical paper to public readers, you can introduce the domain knowledge and problem background information clearly to help readers understand the problem and the filed. You can also combine background and introduction into one section (with sub-sections).• Dataset Description: Describes the experiments and the experimental setup for data collection based on the documents from data recourses. Will describe the explored data sets in details. • Data Mining Experiments: in this section, describe data mining experiments you have done, such as data processing, feature extraction, feature selection, data mining models and tools, data mining strategies you explored, the evaluation metrics, and any other work related to the data mining experiments.• Experimental Results: summarize the experiment results of different models and methods/ideas. A discussion of the results may be included. • Conclusion: Provide your conclusion. For example, comment on the quality of your results. You may also want to include some material on future work, whether or not you intend to do such work. A high quality data mining project may generate a conference or journal paper after the class. • References: you may cite some papers and documents/website in the sections above. Make a reference list with clear index.

BRAND MARKETING STRATEGY ANALYSIS

Identify one fashion brand that has not been analyzed in the End of FashionChapters

Situation Analysis (Ivana)
1) Company Analysis
· Brief Brand history (e.g., critical moments in a company or a brand, big successes or
big failures). Also, include the brand company’s mission statement
· SWOT Analysis
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Opportunities:
Threats:
2) Industry Analysis(macro-environment analysis) (Lea)
This section mentions important aspects of a given industry
· Trends within this particular industry (e.g., fast fashion, haute couture/couture, luxury
brands), such as changes in demographics (newly emerging or potential market?),
technological, and social or economic forces that can affect the industry as a whole
For example,
· Consumers’ price sensitivity (economic factors), consumers’ value of sustainability
· Technological advances that can affect online retailing systems and consumer
engagement
3) Competitor Analysis(micro-environment analysis) (Karen)
· Choose one major competitor and discuss the competitor’s strengths,
weaknesses, and any threats it poses to your brand or product.
Target Consumer Analysis (Kimberly)
One way to get a sense of the target market is to generate a brief character sketch of the
typical target consumer (i.e., target consumer profile).
· Target consumer profile/descriptions for your brand

Use multiple segmentation bases (e.g., demographic, geographic,
psychographic, and behavioral) to increase the accuracy of understanding target
consumers

Brand Marketing Strategy DIANe
This section includes 1) CURRENT 4Psstrategies and 2) YOUR SUGGESTIONS: what you
think should be done in each P.

· Brand: 1) Your analyses about a brand (e.g., brand images; brand personalities),
consumer brand loyalty (brand communities), quality, design, style. Is there anything
unique about your brand compared to competitors? What consumer needs does this brand
satisfy? AND2) Your suggestions on what should be done in enhancing the brand.
Make sure to use concepts and strategies covered in class (same for analyzing other 3Ps)
· Price: 1) Your analyses about price strategies, such as brand price zones (e.g.,
luxury, bridge, better, budget or less), any price adjustment strategies (e.g., discounts,
sales promotion). Any diffusion lines? Whether price is a competitive advantage? AND2)
Your suggestions on its pricing strategies
· Promotion:1) Your analyses about promotion strategies. Where does the brand
advertise? What promotion channels (TV commercial, online advertising, social media,
the use of influencers or bloggers?) does it use? Social media presence and engagement.
AND2) Your suggestions on what can be done additionally.
· Place: 1) Your analyses about distribution strategies.Distribution channels (e.g., do
the distribution channels fit the type of brand image and price?). Single channel or omni-
channels? To what extent it provides a synchronized shopping experience (see chapter
2)? The use of social media channels? Any unique channels (e.g., trunk shows). AND2)
Your suggestions.

Conclusions
· Summary of your analyses and suggestions
Reference list and Appendices

Submission Requirements:

Maximum 4 pages, 12-font and single-spaced with “1” inch margins, including references.
Include a reference list of academic/business sources (APA, MLA, or Chicago Manual Style)
at the end of the paper. Also, if you use statistics, figures, and/or graphs, please include
citations in the body of the paper (e.g., New York Times 2019) and include the full source in
the reference list.
· Academic and business journals or books/monographs (i.e. Business of
Fashion, Harvard Business Review, Women’s Wear Daily, Fashion

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

QUESTION 1
Answer (a), (b), and (c)
(a) Critically evaluate the moves towards a global corporate governance code.

(10 marks)

(b) Outline the main codes in operation.

(10 marks)
(c) Discuss the reasons for differences in corporate governance codes in the first place.
(20 marks)
Total (40 marks)

QUESTION 2
Answer both (a) and (b)
(a) Critically evaluate the need for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the United States of
America in the aftermath of the collapse of Enron indicating major reasons for its
introduction.

(20 marks)
(b) Discuss the contrasting views on whether the Act has been successful in addressing
the need for the Act.

(20 marks)
Total (40 marks)

QUESTION 3
Critically evaluate the UK’s approach to corporate governance including an outline of the
essential features of the approach with an analysis of the benefits associated with the adoption
of such an approach. Your answer should include examples of companies who have complied
with the UK’s approach to corporate governance and examples of companies who have not
complied.

(40 marks)

QUESTION 4
Answer both (a) and (b)
There are various agency relationships which exist in a company.
(a) Critically evaluate what you consider to be the key agency relationships in a
company.

(15 marks)

(b) Outline and assess the different methods which you have studied that can be used to
overcome potential problems in these relationships.

(25 marks)
Total (40 marks)

QUESTION 5
Agency relationships are an inevitable consequence of having a public limited company.
Critically analyse the agency relationships that exist in public limited companies and outline
and critically appraise the methods that can be utilised in order to overcome potential
problems in these relationships.

(40 marks)

QUESTION 6
(i) Explain agency theory, and how it relates to corporate governance.

(18 marks)
(ii) Identify and critically analyse the ELEVEN core principles of corporate governance.
(22 marks)
Total (40 marks)

QUESTION 7
(i) Identify and critically analyse FOUR roles of non-executive directors.

(16 marks)
(ii) Identify SIX corporate governance disclosures that should be included within the
annual Report and explain their significance.

(24 marks)
Total (40 marks)

QUESTION 8
(i) Outline and critically analyse the factors which are required to ensure that the internal
audit function operates effectively.

(20 marks)
(ii) Identify and critically discuss TEN ways in which risk could be classified for any
commercial organisation.

(20 marks)
Total (40 marks)

QUESTION 9

The collapse of Enron in 2001 resulted in the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the
United States of America. Critically evaluate the need for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and
discuss whether you believe that the Act has been successful in addressing the need for the
Act.

(40 marks)

QUESTION 10
Critically evaluate the key agency relationships in a company and outline and assess the
different methods which you have studied that can be used to overcome potential problems in
these relationships

(50 marks)

QUESTION 12
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) introduced a series of corporate governance initiatives into
the federal securities laws which represented not just a considerable change in law but also a
departure in the mode of regulation. The federal regime had until then consisted of disclosure
requirements, rather than substantive corporate governance mandates.
Critically evaluate the need for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the United States of America in the
aftermath of the collapse of Enron and Worldcom Inc, highlighting its significant changes. In
addition discuss whether you believe that the Act has been successful in addressing that need.
(50 marks)

QUESTION 13
There have been a number of corporate governance reports in the UK, which essentially
recommend the retention of the UK’s ‘comply or explain’ approach.
The UK Code has been described as the global model of corporate best practice. Critically
evaluate the ‘comply or explain’ approach under the UK Combined Code. In your answer
you should assess the key aspects of the Code.

(50 marks)

QUESTION 14
Critically discuss the role of a stakeholder and outline each of the main stakeholders and their
respective interests.

(50 marks)

QUESTION 15
Critically evaluate the need for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the United States of America in the
aftermath of the collapse of Enron and discuss whether you believe that the Act has been
successful in addressing the need for the Act.

(50 marks)

QUESTION 16
Ethical sourcing and supply chain management can be a major problem for business today.
Critically analyse the problems companies encounter in ethical sourcing and supply chain
management and put forward your own suggestions as to how companies might aim to solve
these problems.

(50 marks)

QUESTION 17
Critically evaluate the moves towards a global corporate governance code with an outline of
the main codes in operation and discuss the reasons for differences in corporate governance
codes in the first place.

(50 marks)

QUESTION 18
Many people would argue that there is no such thing as Business Ethics. They would say that
business only exists to be profitable and if there is a conflict between choosing to behave
ethically and making profit, profit will always take precedence.
(a) Outline your argument to support the case for ethical behaviour in business.

(40 marks)
(b) Does ethical behaviour guarantee success for a company? Explain your answer with
reasons.

(10 marks)
Total (50 marks)

QUESTION 19
You are the Legal Counsel for a software company which intends to obtain a stock exchange
listing and as a consequence there is a requirement to improve the corporate governance of
the company. One step it is taking is setting up an audit committee. The directors are
currently interviewing two potential non-executive directors and have been asking your views
of what the responsibilities of non-executive directors and the audit committee should be.
Applicant 1 stated on her applicant’s statement that she had read about media criticism of
nonexecutive directors in the wake of many corporate scandals and shared the view of British
entrepreneur Tiny Rowland that they have in the past been no more than ‘a bauble on a
Christmas Tree’. In her opinion non-executive directors were ‘guardian angels’ and as a result
they should adopt an uncompromisingly ethical approach to all their duties, particularly their
work on the audit committee.
However, Applicant 2 stated that such quotes in the press were no more than ‘paper talk’ and
that their impact was much more widespread than this would suggest: ‘in the real world’ away
from politics, non-executive directors had to be primarily responsible for promoting the

company’s interests – the job of directors was to direct the company towards maximising its
profits. The bigger the profits, the greater the benefits are to more people.
Required:
Discuss and critically analyse the potential problems associated with recruiting non-executive
directors and critically discuss how these might be avoided. Reference should be made to the
views of the two Applicants i.e. Applicant A and Applicant B.

INTERNATIONAL PROCUREMENT AND SUPPLY MANAGEMENT

QUESTION 1
KFC is the largest fast food brand in China with over 5,000 stores across 1,100 cities (Businessinsider,
2019). Evaluate the factors that have contributed to KFCs success in China and assess whether you
feel they will continue to be successful in the future. Note: in your answer you should refer to both
the written and video case study material.

(25 marks)

QUESTION 2
Answer both (a) and (b)
(a) Critically evaluate some of the political and economic challenges that global companies face
when entering a new market.

(20 marks)
(b) Many global companies such as Starbucks, Apple and McDonalds have entered China in
recent years. Evaluate the specific challenge that a US company might face entering China in
today’s political environment.

(5 marks)
Total (25 marks)

QUESTION 3
Answer all parts
The Uppsala Model, Born Global and Network Model are three theories that help to explain the
internationalization process of firms.
Evaluate any TWO of the three theories mentioned above. Show ONE company example for each
of your chosen models to help illustrate your answer.
(a) The Uppsala Theory

(12.5 marks)

(b) The Network Model

(12.5 marks)

(12.5 marks)
Total (25 marks)

Page 3 of 3

QUESTION 4
Answer both (a) and (b)
Market research is the organized effort to gather important insights about consumers’ needs and
preferences. While traditional methods of market research remain important there has also been a
growing number of new innovative approaches to market research now available.
(a) Choose TWO of the following traditional/non-traditional approaches to market research
approaches from the list below. Then evaluate the particular approach and give an example
of how it could be used in practice by global marketers.
(i) OBSERVATION
(ii) SURVEYS
(iii) CROWDSOURCING
(iv) FOCUS GROUPS
(v) SOCIAL LISTENING

(20 marks)
(b) Identify any three ways that technology has impacted the global market research industry.
(5 marks)
Total (25 marks)

QUESTION 5
You have been hired as a consultant by Insomnia – an Irish chain of coffee shops. Having seen the
recent success of Starbucks in India they are keen to consider it as a future investment location. They
have asked you to write a report advising them on the cultural implications of operating their coffee
chain in India. Using the 5 Elements of Culture as your structure (Cateora and Graham) write this
report. Note: your answer should attempt to provide specific recommendations in the case of India.
(25 marks)

QUESTION 6
Answer both (a) and (b)
(a) Use the message communication process as a framework to help explain the steps involved
in developing effective marketing communications campaigns.

(15 marks)
(b) The annual Clio Awards recognise creative excellence in marketing and advertising. One of
the awards categories each year is for “Best Integrated Marketing Campaign”. Evaluate the
importance of Integrated Marketing Communications. Use an example (or examples) of
recent Clio Award winners and show why they might have been recognised for excellence in
Integrated Marketing Communications.

Programming for Data Analysis

Assessment Requirements / Tasks (include all guidance notes)
This assignment will use employment data of Wales from the StatsWales data
source. This dataset provides workplace employment estimates, or estimates of
total jobs, for Wales and its NUTS2 areas, along with comparable UK data
disaggregated by industry section.
For this assignment students will undertake a data analysis and machine learning
approach to reveal the workplace employment landscape of Wales.

Data processing
1.1. Download the dataset for the period 2009 – 2018 and create a dataframe that
concatenates Wales (total) employment value only.
1.2. Check for any null value or outlier. If found replace that with mean value.
1.3. Change the name of the industries as bellow
The final dataframe should look like following
Industry 200
9
201
0
201
1
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Agriculture
Production
Construction
Retail
ICT
Finance
Real_Estate
Professional_Servic
e
Public_Adminstratio
n
Other_Service

Data analysis
For each question provide graph/chart along with your own interpretation (~ 50
words)
2.1. Which industry employed highest and lowest workers over the period?
2.2. Which industry has the highest and lowest overall growth over the period?
2.3. Which years are the best and worst performing year in relation to number of
employment. (highest and lowest employment)
Visual analysis
Create a dynamic scatter/bubble plot showing the change of workforce number over
the period using Plotly express.
PCA/Correlation
4.1. Undertake a PCA (PC=2; columns should be like PC1, PC2, Industry) and
produce a scatter plot. Write your interpretation about the plot and in relation
to the analysis of section 2 & 3 (for example which industries are correlated
over the years as well as in PCA etc.)
4.2. Make a year wise correlation for each industry. Does the aforementioned
industries are also correlated over the years? Explain your answer.

Page 5 of 8

Clustering (k means & hierarchical)
5.1. Using the best and worst performing year column’s employment data (2.3)
undertake a K means clustering analysis (K=2 & 3) and identify industries
cluster together. Write your own interpretation (~100 words).
5.2. Using the same dataset (best & worst performing) create a hierarchical
cluster. Compare the cluster with k means clusters.
Discussion
Provide a brief discussion (~ 300 words) on employment landscape of Wales based
on the employment data analysis results.
Assessment Criteria
1.1 Data preparation 05
1.2 Data preparation 05
1.3 Data preparation 05
2.1 Data analysis 05
2.2 Data analysis 05
2.3 Data analysis 05
3 Visual analysis 20
4.1 PCA 10
4.1 Correlation 10
5.1 Clustering 10
5.2 Clustering 10
6 Discussion 10
Submission Details
Please see Moodle for confirmation of the Assessment submission date.
Presentation will be on 4:00 PM of submission date.
Any assessments submitted after the deadline will not be marked and will be
recorded as a Non-Attempt.
The assessment must be submitted as a zip file / pdf / word document through the
Turnitin submission point in Moodle
Your assessment should be titled with your Student ID Number, module code and
assessment id, e.g. st12345678 CIS4000 WRIT1

Page 6 of 8

Feedback
Feedback for the assessment will be provided electronically via Moodle, and will
normally be available 4 working weeks after initial submission. The feedback return
date will be confirmed on Moodle.
Feedback will be provided in the form of a rubric and supported with comments on
your strengths and the areas which you improve.
All marks are preliminary and are subject to quality assurance processes and
confirmation at the Examination Board.
Further information on the Academic and Feedback Policy in available in the
Academic Handbook (Vol 1, Section 4.0)
Marking Criteria
70 – 100%
(1 st )

Addressed all sections and provided correct answers with elegant
presentation of results. Applied correct data analysis approaches
and provided excellent interpretation on each section.

60-69%
(2:1)

Addressed all sections and provided correct answers with good
presentation of results. Applied mostly correct data analysis
approaches and provided very good interpretation on each section.

50-59%
(2:2)

Addressed most of the sections and provided mostly correct answers
with average presentation of results. Applied some correct data
analysis approaches and provided an average interpretation on each
section.

40-49%
(3 rd )

Addressed few sections with few correct answers with/out any
presentation of results. Applied mostly incorrect data analysis
approaches and provided

Economics

To submit,

A copy (file or picture) of the original essay your picked from publications.

The grading will be based upon both numerical analysis and explanation.

Guide for research

Below are some suggested candidates for research topics.

Planning for retirement savings
How much should you earn to justify the cost of your college education?
How much is the value of attending the graduate school?
Project planning
For other topics, please contact the instructor.

Please note that these are open questions. You need to determine your financial needs, the time line, the financial parameters, and how you can achieve your financial goal.

I have included some useful financial sources.

money.com
http://topics.nytimes.com/your-money/planning/financial-planners/index.html,
Wall Street Journal

International Economics

QUESTION 1
Answer both (a) and (b)
(a) Suppose for health reasons a tax is placed on cigarette consumption with the sole objective of
reducing the demand for cigarettes.
The tobacco industry objects to the tax and argues that, since the price elasticity of demand for
cigarettes is very low, the only impact of the tax will be an increase in government revenue.
Using demand and supply diagrams, present the tobacco industry’s argument and suggest other
measures the government could use to achieve its objective.

(15 marks)
(b) Imagine you are the new owner of a bus company that is struggling to survive. You have access
to the following information about the elasticities of demand for bus travel:

Income elasticity = -0.4
Own-price elasticity = -1.2
Cross-price elasticity with respect to rail fares = +2.1

Briefly explain the meaning of each of these terms and discuss how this information could
influence your business decisions.

(10 marks)
Total (25 marks)

QUESTION 2
Answer both (a) and (b)
(a) Why is it necessary to have competition legislation?

(15 marks)
(b) Discuss the main factors which prevent market forces from eroding the market power of
monopolies and oligopolies.

(10 marks)
Total (25 marks)

QUESTION 3
What is meant by the term ‘The gig economy’?
Analyse the main advantages and disadvantages to firms and workers of the gig economy.

(25 marks)

QUESTION 4
Monetary and fiscal policies are often used by governments to achieve their objectives. Drawing on your
knowledge of these policies, evaluate their effectiveness in achieving economic growth.

(25 marks)

Page 3 of 3

QUESTION 5
Critically evaluate Ireland’s membership of the European Union under each of the following headings:
(a) Foreign direct investment
(b) International trade
(c) Growth and immigration