Pneumonia and unfortunately my professor refuses to allow an extension for my assignment despite countless doctors notes. Honestly, I am still so sick that I can't really form long coherent thoughts in my head to fully complete this assignment. Any help is much appreciated, more than I can say!!1. A July, 2015 article in the periodical The Nation writes: "without medical intervention most communities tend to produce 104 to 106 boys for every 100 girls, as nature compensates for the higher male mortality rates. But in China, where the abortion of female fetuses spiked during the three decades of one-child policy, the ratio of baby boys to girls was 115.9 last year. The latest equivalent figure in India is 110.01, according to its 2011-2013 sample registration system, while Vietname's hit 113.8 in 2013. Singapore's ratio last year was 105.6."

"The gender imbalance is now so serious that Vietnamese men can hardly get a wife n the near future, maybe from 2025 onward."

"Recent United Nations simulations for India and China suggests that in 15 years, there could be three men seeking to marry for every two available women. This mass involuntary singlehood protends deep changes in societies where marriage marks entry into adulthood and confers social recognition."

a) Based on the characterization above, draw a demand-supply curve diagram for the "marriage market" under simple assumptions. You may choose to depict either the market for wives or for husbands, but be explicit which you choose. Illustrate on your diagram, and comment on, the likely equilibrium price for wives or husbands in these Asian countries according to the model (ie// positive, negative, neutral)

b) Provide an interpretation of the "price" of wives or husbands in China. (Explicit bride buying is comparatively rare today. Hense, focus on describing implicit prices. Give some examples of the implicit prices people might be paying for a spouse)

c) While the economic model focuses on the "price" of wives or husbands in the "marriage market," non-economists stress the sociological consequences unbalanced sex-ratios may have. For example, the same article notes, "But it is not always the case that the women gets to choose. The scarcity of women does not automatically raise their value or status, sociologist Ravinder Kaur from the Indian Institute or Technology, Delhi explains. 'It might lead to a greater violence around marriage and sexuality, as in current spate of honour crimes.' The shortage of women in Haryana -- which has India's worst sex ratio at 115.7 -- for example, has increased the chances of inter-caste marriages or unions that contravene strict social codes policed by the khap panchayats, or the unelected caste councils who are influential despite having no legal standing. These can have deadly consqeuences." While the above quotation specifically refers to the so-called honour crimes, I would like you to briefly discuss other possible links between a high equilibrium price for a spouse in these countries and the expected crime rates there. Thus, provide a short paragraph in which you describe how the sex-ratio imbalance may change the general crime rates for both violent and non-violent crimes. (Side note: Please don't worry about writing a paragraph, I can do that myself, but any general thoughts and bullet points on this idea would be so helpful!!)

2. PM Justin Trudeau has announced his intention to legalize marijuana (see, ie// www.liberal.ca/realchange/marijuana/  if need more info). Sketch a supply-demand model for the market for marijuana to analyze the likely impact on the equilibrium quantity and price resulting from the legalization. Be sure to discuss in some detail your assumptions behind any  changes in the supply/demand curves.

3. A news article in the Edmonton Journal on December 2014 stated that, "The province is looking at cutting 70 of the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team's 280 positions to save money." The cost-cutting proposal is surely related to the Alberta government's fiscal crunch due to falling oil prices. This suggests that large swings in oil prices might seve as a statistical instrument (or a natural experiment) for expansions or reductions in law enforcement, which could be used to study the effect of policing on crime deterrence. 

a) Explain the basic idea behind using a statistical instrument (or "instrument variable") for addressing the simultaneity problem, when trying to establish causal  effects in economics.Why would swings in oil prices actually NOT be a good instrument to use for determining whether changes in policing have deterrent deffect on criminals? To answer this question, consider the possible sources of simultaneity bias or confounding effects that changes on oil prices may have on the observed relationship between the quantity of policing and the crime rate.