Assignment:
Assignment Content
1. Purpose of Assignment
The theory of market economies emphasizes freedom of choice and limited government intervention. The classic argument for government intervention is market failure - the inability of the market economy to correct itself from a dysfunctional state (such as the Great Depression). Students will examine articles from the University Library to analyze real-world examples of U.S. government intervention programs and apply current week readings to make intelligent conclusions about the economic policies.
Resource
o Government Intervention Grading GuideThe assignment was originally a Powerpoint Presentation; use the content portion of the guide and ignore the parts about the Powerpoint.
o Tutorial help on Excel and Word functions can be found on the Microsoft Office website. There are also additional tutorials via the web offering support for Office products.
Assignment Steps
Locate up to three different articles/publications and/or use The Economist Online. Examine one case of significant government intervention as it relates to your current industry of employment or an industry in which you are interested in working. You may access EBSCOhost,
ProQuest or The Economist Online.
Examples of intervention programs you may select, but are not limited to:
o US agriculture support programs
o Low income support programs (Food Stamps, Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families)
o Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Program, The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)
o Low-income rent controls and housing vouchers
o Government promotion of renewable energy sources to discourage use of fossil fuels such as coal and oil
o Unemployment Insurance
o Bailout of U.S. banks and other financial institutions during the Great Recession
o Bailout of U.S. automakers during the Great Recession
o Social Security retirement benefits
Develop a minimum 1050 word paper including the following:
o Describe the intervention and detail its history.
o Analyze the arguments for government intervention as opposed to arguments for market-based solutions. Hint: See the information in our course textbook on market failures.
o Examine who may be helped and who may be hurt by the selected government intervention.
o Examine externalities and/or unintended consequences of such intervention.
o Determine the cost trend of the intervention program since its implementation including whether costs are increasing, decreasing, or vary with the state of the economy.
o Evaluate the success or failure of the intervention in achieving its objectives and develop conclusions.
o Recommend whether the program should be continued as is, discontinued, or modified and defend your recommendation.
Note: The use of tables and/or charts to display economic data over the time period discussed is highly encouraged. However, if your source includes the copyright symbol, which looks like this: ©, then you should not copy any table and/or charts from that source. You could use, but are not required to use, charts/graphs retrieved from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis FRED web site as long as the data sources used by FRED to create those charts are government sources such as the Bureau of Economic Analysis or the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Format your paper according to APA guidelines.