http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/technology/14print.html Why are you signing in as a guest? Get a gmail account with your first initial and last name and join the wiki. Since you only worked on the first paragraph and id not add the graphs, I will assume that you do not want me to grade the commentary. I'll be back Sunday.
Conor Bruce
IB Econ HL Year 2 / Mrs. Sidor
Economic Commentary 1
One of the biggest problems for manufacturing firms throughout the modern era is the process of developing and prototyping new products, then deciding how many of this new product they should produce so that the slow manufacturing process can keep up or slow down with demand. However, according to the New York Times article, "3-D Printing Spurs a Manufacturing Revolution," in recent years, 3-D printers, printers that print layers of plastic instead of ink, have reduced the prototyping stage of production to basically nothing. Because this technology has progressed to be able to produce objects similar in quality to slower, more traditional methods, like CNC or injection molding, products themselves can be printed, instead of just the prototypes. This allows firms who use the new production method to produce products that could could cost a tenth of what they were before, causing the supply of products to drastically increase, the price to then drop, and the quantity demanded to dramatically increase. This is especially useful because products like prosthetic limbs can be produced and sold to people who that need them, but couldn't pay for them before.
Prosthetic Leg Market
On the first graph above, a market for prosthetic limbs, a product that can benefit from reduced prototyping time, and assuming that there is not a finite number of amputees in the world, one can easily see that as the supply of prosthetic limbs increases due to a reduction in fixed costs, or how much a firm has to pay regardless of how much they produce, to basically zero because a firm can produce so efficiently that it doesn’t have to invest any money to create a unique process for each product line. As the supply shifts out from S to S1 it is clear that the price will lower from P to P1 and the quantity supplied will increase from Q to Q1.
Finally, this new technology will help to shift out the Production Possibilities Frontier. The PPF is a graph that helps to illustrate how much an economy can produce depending on how the Factors of Production, which are Land, Labor, Capital, and Entrepreneurship, are allocated, or distributed throughout an economy. For example, an economy could specialize in the production of limbs, or the production of shovels, but not both. It can however produce a mix of these products, as long as it is at a point within the PPF. However, because of the introduction of new technology, an economy may be able to allocate less of its Factors of Production toward making limbs, and shift them toward the production of shovels.
Production Possibilities Frontier
As shown above, the economy is producing slightly more limbs than shovels in the first graph. Another point of interest is as the economy is producing on the PPF itself, it is not only producing efficiently, but at Full Employment. Full Employment does not necessarily mean that there is no unemployment, as there may be some Seasonal Unemployment, Frictional Unemployment, or Structural Unemployment, but it does mean that there is Cyclical Unemployment. When the new technology shifts out the PPF for limbs, the economy is clearly able to now produce more shovels or more limbs, whichever are more appropriate, depending on the current economic advantages of the time.
Conor, I used the rubric as a metric to assess how well you are meeting the criteria.
Criterion B: Requires the commentary be clearly written, the diagrams NO TITLE (graphs) are varied, properly labeled and effectively integrated in text.
Your article is about the United States. The focus should be a world view. You have not included textual evidence from the extract (article) to support your analysis. Focus on three main ideas-- as is your ideas are not developed well. Read the Internal Assessment directions and note that the commentary must cite the extract with proper internal citations and a works cited. You have no diagrams; note that they must be titled or integrated into the text. You need a diagram for every theory or concept that you use.
Criterion C: Economic terminology used consistently, throughout extract NEED to do this; Accurate definitions included in text or in endnotes when necessary;
Criterion D: Two or three relevant theories must identified, applied, BETTER but analyzed consistently, throughout the portfolio.
Need to do Criterion E--Long run and unintended consequences
HL2 Internal Assessment--list of students
Post Commentary One--Microeconomics
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/technology/14print.html
Why are you signing in as a guest? Get a gmail account with your first initial and last name and join the wiki. Since you only worked on the first paragraph and id not add the graphs, I will assume that you do not want me to grade the commentary. I'll be back Sunday.
Conor Bruce
IB Econ HL Year 2 / Mrs. Sidor
Economic Commentary 1
One of the biggest problems for manufacturing firms throughout the modern era is the process of developing and prototyping new products, then deciding how many of this new product they should produce so that the slow manufacturing process can keep up or slow down with demand. However, according to the New York Times article, "3-D Printing Spurs a Manufacturing Revolution," in recent years, 3-D printers, printers that print layers of plastic instead of ink, have reduced the prototyping stage of production to basically nothing. Because this technology has progressed to be able to produce objects similar in quality to slower, more traditional methods, like CNC or injection molding, products themselves can be printed, instead of just the prototypes. This allows firms who use the new production method to produce products that could could cost a tenth of what they were before, causing the supply of products to drastically increase, the price to then drop, and the quantity demanded to dramatically increase. This is especially useful because products like prosthetic limbs can be produced and sold to people who that need them, but couldn't pay for them before.
Prosthetic Leg Market
On the first graph above, a market for prosthetic limbs, a product that can benefit from reduced prototyping time, and assuming that there is not a finite number of amputees in the world, one can easily see that as the supply of prosthetic limbs increases due to a reduction in fixed costs, or how much a firm has to pay regardless of how much they produce, to basically zero because a firm can produce so efficiently that it doesn’t have to invest any money to create a unique process for each product line. As the supply shifts out from S to S1 it is clear that the price will lower from P to P1 and the quantity supplied will increase from Q to Q1.
Finally, this new technology will help to shift out the Production Possibilities Frontier. The PPF is a graph that helps to illustrate how much an economy can produce depending on how the Factors of Production, which are Land, Labor, Capital, and Entrepreneurship, are allocated, or distributed throughout an economy. For example, an economy could specialize in the production of limbs, or the production of shovels, but not both. It can however produce a mix of these products, as long as it is at a point within the PPF. However, because of the introduction of new technology, an economy may be able to allocate less of its Factors of Production toward making limbs, and shift them toward the production of shovels.
Production Possibilities Frontier
As shown above, the economy is producing slightly more limbs than shovels in the first graph. Another point of interest is as the economy is producing on the PPF itself, it is not only producing efficiently, but at Full Employment. Full Employment does not necessarily mean that there is no unemployment, as there may be some Seasonal Unemployment, Frictional Unemployment, or Structural Unemployment, but it does mean that there is Cyclical Unemployment. When the new technology shifts out the PPF for limbs, the economy is clearly able to now produce more shovels or more limbs, whichever are more appropriate, depending on the current economic advantages of the time.
Conor,
I used the rubric as a metric to assess how well you are meeting the criteria.
Criterion B: Requires the commentary be clearly written, the diagrams NO TITLE (graphs) are varied, properly labeled and effectively integrated in text.
Your article is about the United States. The focus should be a world view. You have not included textual evidence from the extract (article) to support your analysis. Focus on three main ideas-- as is your ideas are not developed well. Read the Internal Assessment directions and note that the commentary must cite the extract with proper internal citations and a works cited. You have no diagrams; note that they must be titled or integrated into the text. You need a diagram for every theory or concept that you use.
Criterion C: Economic terminology used consistently, throughout extract NEED to do this; Accurate definitions included in text or in endnotes when necessary;
Criterion D: Two or three relevant theories must identified, applied, BETTER but analyzed consistently, throughout the portfolio.
Need to do Criterion E--Long run and unintended consequences