Length: about 1500 words each
Submission method options
Alternative submission method
Task
The assignment consists of two problem questions. Each question is worth 20 marks.

Question 1 (20 marks)
The question is based on material in the Text. Text material which may be relevant to the question may be drawn primarily from any of Text chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 (with those highlighted likely to be the most important). The question addresses the following learning outcomes:
· be able to apply demand and supply analysis to make a range of market related decisions
· be able to critically examine and demonstrate why it might be necessary for government to intervene in the production of goods and services and in the distribution of income

Answer the following:
At the end of the 1970s, the respective prices of fish dinners and lamb dinners in Sydney’s fine dining restaurants were approximately the same. By 1983, following a period of drought, the price of a lamb dinner in fine-dining restaurants in Sydney was twenty percent higher than the price of a fish dinner at similar restaurants. Over the same period, the ‘health industry’ had been extolling the virtues of eating fish rather than red meat and increased fish consumption had resulted in a threat to the sustainability of fishing particular species especially important to the fine-dining restaurant trade. How should the government respond?

Question 2 (20 marks)
The question is based on material in the Text. Text material which may be relevant to the question may be drawn primarily from any of Text chapters 12 or 13 (with the chapter highlighted likely to be the most important). The question addresses the following learning outcome:
· be able to make decisions that incorporate the relevant benefits and cost analysis

Answer the following:
Newspaper companies appear to be under threat of becoming irrelevant as the sale of newspapers has plummeted over the last 20 years. If you were chairman of the board of a newspaper company, how would you respond? (Hint: Consider newspapers as one of many alternative sources of accessing news)

Rationale
In your working life you will be required to present arguments and explain your decisions. Economics gives you tools to do this. However, many of those with whom you work will have little, if any, understanding of the principles of economics and their application. To communicate with these people you will have to put your arguments succinctly into language that they understand. This does not mean that your argument is any less rigorous or sophisticated. Rather, it means that you are being asked to communicate important concepts and decisions in a manner that most people can understand