This might be something you look at over the break or after you graduate.
Saturday, September 30, 2017
Friday, September 29, 2017
From a Talk I Attended at the Educause Learning Initiative
Below is one slide from a PowerPoint presentation given back in 2008. The talk was done by Thomas Reeves. Many of the ideas in the presentation resonated with me. You can click through the entire PowerPoint and get a sense of the ideas and issues. It might also help you to understand the methods we are using in our class. They derive from the considerations discussed in this talk.
Here is one other point. While I think much of your education should be ethical, I am somewhat uncomfortable being put in the role of provider of that education. I am trying to contain my role to getting you to consider the issues. How to resolve the issues is for you to determine on your own or in consultation with friends, family, and your spiritual advisors.
Regarding the discussion we had in class yesterday about tipping, where I jokingly said that members of the class are too nice, you should be aware of some more current research that shows many people are very nice in certain contexts and then not nice at all in other contexts. The current research tries to reconcile this inconsistency.
Here is one other point. While I think much of your education should be ethical, I am somewhat uncomfortable being put in the role of provider of that education. I am trying to contain my role to getting you to consider the issues. How to resolve the issues is for you to determine on your own or in consultation with friends, family, and your spiritual advisors.
Regarding the discussion we had in class yesterday about tipping, where I jokingly said that members of the class are too nice, you should be aware of some more current research that shows many people are very nice in certain contexts and then not nice at all in other contexts. The current research tries to reconcile this inconsistency.
Discovery as Learning
I liked this quote.
Quote Details: Albert Szent-Gyorgyi: Discovery consists of seeing... - The Quotations Page via kwout
If you find connections between your experience and the topics of the course as you compose your blog posts or during discussion in class, that would fit in with the quote and make you a budding social scientist!
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Evaluation of Tenth Class Session
The comments on the previous evaluations were interesting and useful to me. So I will continue with the evaluation for this session, even if it is more lecture than discussion.
Budgeting at the U of I - For Class Session on 9/27
PowerPoint on Budgeting Fundamentals - we'll look at slides 6 and 7
Question: What determines how much revenue a unit has in its budget?
Library Model - Funding off he top
Responsibility Centered Management - Funding determined by a formula that relates last year's activities and last year's budget to this year's budget.
Grants and gifts treated differently - those might go directly to the unit, in all or part.
Tuition surcharge that some colleges charge and graduate student tuition treated somewhat like grants and gifts.
Cost Recovery Model - Unit sells its services to other units on campus. The revenue from those sales determine the unit's budget.
In times of stability of revenue and activity this year's budget looks remarkably like last year's budget. When there are dramatic changes in revenues and/or the demand for services, that creates stress on budgets.
New (2016) Report from Campus Budget Advisory Task Force
Graph from page 8 of the report
Question: What determines how much revenue a unit has in its budget?
Library Model - Funding off he top
Responsibility Centered Management - Funding determined by a formula that relates last year's activities and last year's budget to this year's budget.
Grants and gifts treated differently - those might go directly to the unit, in all or part.
Tuition surcharge that some colleges charge and graduate student tuition treated somewhat like grants and gifts.
Cost Recovery Model - Unit sells its services to other units on campus. The revenue from those sales determine the unit's budget.
In times of stability of revenue and activity this year's budget looks remarkably like last year's budget. When there are dramatic changes in revenues and/or the demand for services, that creates stress on budgets.
New (2016) Report from Campus Budget Advisory Task Force
Graph from page 8 of the report
About the Course Project - Process
The previous post described the format and length requirements for the paper. In this post we will consider more about what you are to deliver and when.
There will be two drafts - a first draft and a subsequent revision. The first draft needs to be an earnest effort. I will then provide detailed feedback on that first draft within the body of the paper using the Track Changes feature of Word and the Comment tool. I will provide a demo of how to use those tools in class.
When you submit your second draft, accompanying your revision you will included to me a memo of how you addressed each comment from what I sent in the first draft. This memo is very helpful to me to understand what you did in response. I will comment on your second draft, probably not inline only at the end, unless there are egregious errors that still need to be fixed.
Assuming your second draft is okay, I will let you know that. From there you are to make a virtual elevator speech - an overview presentation of your project. In form, those will be like the PowerPoint presentations I've made for the first few weeks of the class. These will be posted in Moodle for the class to see. I will give more instructions on the virtual elevator speech neared to when you will be working on it.
Please remember - in all communication with me about your project copy your teammates on your message.
Deadlines:
First Draft Due - October 27 at noon. The October 27 part is a hard deadline. I will not accept a paper turned in the next day. I will process these as fast as I can so you can start on the revision asap.
Second Draft Due - Novemeber 17 at noon. This is the Friday before the Thanksgiving break. There is a soft deadline here because we don't have class the following week. But you will enjoy your break more if you meet this deadline as well.
Virtual Elevator Speech Due - December 14 at noon. This is Reading Day.
There will be two drafts - a first draft and a subsequent revision. The first draft needs to be an earnest effort. I will then provide detailed feedback on that first draft within the body of the paper using the Track Changes feature of Word and the Comment tool. I will provide a demo of how to use those tools in class.
When you submit your second draft, accompanying your revision you will included to me a memo of how you addressed each comment from what I sent in the first draft. This memo is very helpful to me to understand what you did in response. I will comment on your second draft, probably not inline only at the end, unless there are egregious errors that still need to be fixed.
Assuming your second draft is okay, I will let you know that. From there you are to make a virtual elevator speech - an overview presentation of your project. In form, those will be like the PowerPoint presentations I've made for the first few weeks of the class. These will be posted in Moodle for the class to see. I will give more instructions on the virtual elevator speech neared to when you will be working on it.
Please remember - in all communication with me about your project copy your teammates on your message.
Deadlines:
First Draft Due - October 27 at noon. The October 27 part is a hard deadline. I will not accept a paper turned in the next day. I will process these as fast as I can so you can start on the revision asap.
Second Draft Due - Novemeber 17 at noon. This is the Friday before the Thanksgiving break. There is a soft deadline here because we don't have class the following week. But you will enjoy your break more if you meet this deadline as well.
Virtual Elevator Speech Due - December 14 at noon. This is Reading Day.
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Suggestions for Course Paper
The paper is meant to be formal writing, yet with the intended audience students who will take the class in the future. I know much student to student communication is quite informal and full of abbreviations, driven by how texting has changed the way we communicate. So what I mean here is that student readers should find your paper not too difficult to understand, if they put in the effort to read it. This means that if you use jargon, you must define it in understandable terms. It also means that you shouldn't take long excerpts from the paper you are reviewing and instead put the arguments in the paper into your own words. Beyond that, here are several specific suggestions.
Chunk the paper and use section headings for each chunk.
Some specific sections that you should include are (You can have other sections as well and/or have multiple sections associated with any one of these.):
1. What is the main issue that the paper deals with? (You should come up with your one section heading for this and the remaining sections.)
2. What is the contribution of the paper? If others have also written on this issue how has this paper added to our understanding as compared to what came before?
3. How do the issues of the paper tie into what we've done in the class?
4. What are some lessons learned from the paper?
5. Do you have your own views on the matter or some examples you can bring in that are not discussed in the paper but that might illustrate ideas in the paper?
6. Conclusion
A big deal issue with formal writing is the sequencing of your presentation. Even after you know what you are going to say, you need to order your presentation that will make it logical for the reader. One thought that guides formal writing is that the authors do the work so the readers don't have to.
Each team member needs to own the whole paper.
This means, in particular, that if one team member writes a section of the paper, the other edits that section and makes changes to it in an effort to improve things. It also means that each team member is concerned with whether one section flows into the next in a smooth way. Abrupt transitions are to be avoided, because they confuse the reader.
Format of the paper
Please submit a Word document, preferably a docx file. I may use Track Changes in giving my response. I will try to give a demo in class of how to use Track Changes, as my prior experience is that some students are unfamiliar with it.
You need a title page. It has the name of the paper, the team name, the date, and an abstract, which is a brief summary of what the paper is about.
Starting with the next page, the body of the paper should be between 6 and 10 pages, single space within paragraphs, line space between paragraphs. Font size should be 11 or 12 point. Margins should be 1 inch. Since the paper this would be printed out on is 8.5 x 11 inches, this means the writing area is 6.5 x 9 inches.
Please use page numbers as it makes it easier to refer to parts of your paper in an email. Do not number the title page. I prefer page numbers to be on the bottom of the page. If you start a New Section after the title page and you format page numbers so the new section begins with page 1, that will give you the desired result.
After the body of the paper you need a page for references, rather than put footnotes to references in the body of the paper. My preferred way of doing this is that the first time you refer to the reference in your paper you list authors only, not the title of the piece. If you make subsequent use of the references you can then repeat the authors names. Then in the reference area, you can make a full reference. I like to have those hyperlinked to the source if possible. And if you are real slick, you can put in internal links in the paper from where you refer to the piece to the reference item. That makes things quite convenient for the reader.
Chunk the paper and use section headings for each chunk.
Some specific sections that you should include are (You can have other sections as well and/or have multiple sections associated with any one of these.):
1. What is the main issue that the paper deals with? (You should come up with your one section heading for this and the remaining sections.)
2. What is the contribution of the paper? If others have also written on this issue how has this paper added to our understanding as compared to what came before?
3. How do the issues of the paper tie into what we've done in the class?
4. What are some lessons learned from the paper?
5. Do you have your own views on the matter or some examples you can bring in that are not discussed in the paper but that might illustrate ideas in the paper?
6. Conclusion
A big deal issue with formal writing is the sequencing of your presentation. Even after you know what you are going to say, you need to order your presentation that will make it logical for the reader. One thought that guides formal writing is that the authors do the work so the readers don't have to.
Each team member needs to own the whole paper.
This means, in particular, that if one team member writes a section of the paper, the other edits that section and makes changes to it in an effort to improve things. It also means that each team member is concerned with whether one section flows into the next in a smooth way. Abrupt transitions are to be avoided, because they confuse the reader.
Format of the paper
Please submit a Word document, preferably a docx file. I may use Track Changes in giving my response. I will try to give a demo in class of how to use Track Changes, as my prior experience is that some students are unfamiliar with it.
You need a title page. It has the name of the paper, the team name, the date, and an abstract, which is a brief summary of what the paper is about.
Starting with the next page, the body of the paper should be between 6 and 10 pages, single space within paragraphs, line space between paragraphs. Font size should be 11 or 12 point. Margins should be 1 inch. Since the paper this would be printed out on is 8.5 x 11 inches, this means the writing area is 6.5 x 9 inches.
Please use page numbers as it makes it easier to refer to parts of your paper in an email. Do not number the title page. I prefer page numbers to be on the bottom of the page. If you start a New Section after the title page and you format page numbers so the new section begins with page 1, that will give you the desired result.
After the body of the paper you need a page for references, rather than put footnotes to references in the body of the paper. My preferred way of doing this is that the first time you refer to the reference in your paper you list authors only, not the title of the piece. If you make subsequent use of the references you can then repeat the authors names. Then in the reference area, you can make a full reference. I like to have those hyperlinked to the source if possible. And if you are real slick, you can put in internal links in the paper from where you refer to the piece to the reference item. That makes things quite convenient for the reader.
Excel Homework On Coordination Failures and Coordination Mechanisms
Please post questions about the homework as comments on this post.
PLEASE DON'T TYPE IN DECIMALS. USE CELL REFERENCES. IT MAY SEEM A PAIN, BUT YOU'LL GET GOOD RESULTS THAT WAY.
PLEASE DON'T TYPE IN DECIMALS. USE CELL REFERENCES. IT MAY SEEM A PAIN, BUT YOU'LL GET GOOD RESULTS THAT WAY.
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Sorry but no prizes for the best bargainer
Evidently, I was flustered at the end of class today. The problem that students had reading the slips of paper bothered me and I made some additional mistakes after that. One of those - I didn't save the Excel sheet which had the results of the bargaining. So I don't have the data to analyze. We'll do better on that score the next time.
When in Rome - A Little Family Humor
I deliberately didn't talk today about the posts of a few students who considered tipping, as a way where opportunism is possible but doesn't happen. I would like to consider it immediately after we go over the Excel homework on Thursday and try to connect the two ideas. In some cases tipping is consistent with the theory. In other cases it requires a different explanation. If you know the line that starts - When in Rome - that gives a plausible other explanation but it is more sociology than economics.
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My wife works for the university and her first initial is also L. So we occasionally get email meant for the other. She just forwarded me a message that one of you sent back in August. So if I don't respond to your email, that is one possible reason why.
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My wife works for the university and her first initial is also L. So we occasionally get email meant for the other. She just forwarded me a message that one of you sent back in August. So if I don't respond to your email, that is one possible reason why.
Evaluation of Ninth Class Session
We are beginning to get into the real class content. So if you complete the evaluation form for the session, I'd appreciate comments not just about the session itself but also whether the content is making sense to you or if seems elusive or hard to understand.
VPN
If you don't have this on your laptop, you might want to get it. It allows you to be on the Campus Network from off campus locations.
Monday, September 25, 2017
Papers for Course Projects
Below is the list from last year. I think it is a pretty good set to choose from. These are papers published for professional economists, but don't have math that would be a barrier for undergraduate students. Last year I made sure there was no overlap between the teams in assigning the papers. This year, I'm going to allow overlap. So if two teams want to do the same paper, that's okay. But note that it gives me ammunition to compare what you do.
We'll allocate papers to teams a week from tomorrow. Between now and then I will give some instructions on what the course projects will be like. For now, you might see if you have a preference for a particular paper.
1. Ronald Coase - The Nature of the Firm
This is where the subject matter all started. Coase, who won the Nobel prize for Economics though he actually was a Law professor at the University of Chicago, asks a very elemental question. Why are there firms? Whey don't all transactions happen within markets? '
2. Oliver Williamson - Transaction Cost Economics: An Introduction
Williamson is another Nobel Prize winner and the person who took the baton from Coase and advanced the field. He is most known for his work on governance of contracts and this paper gives a nice overview of how that works and helps to keep transaction costs under control.
3. Alchian and Demsetz - Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization
This paper gives an answer to the question of why there are firms - team production. It also explains why the owner/entrepreneur should be the manager of the other team members as well as the residual claimant on the profit the firm generates. It offers a very good theory of the capitalism of small businesses.
4. Alfred Chandler - Organizational Capabilities and the Economic History of the Industrial Enterprise
While we have been emphasizing transaction costs in class, this paper takes a comparative view of various possible explanations of the firm and notes that the evidence doesn't really favor the transactions cost approach. It is interesting to see the implications of the different approaches when contrasted side by side.
5. Klein, Crawford, and Alchian - Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process
This is the most famous paper on the holdup problem. It gives a very general description of the issue and then uses some historical examples to illustrate. One of those examples we will discuss in class, the case of Fisher Body and General Motors.
6. Arthur Okun - The Invisible Handshake and the Inflationary Process
NOTE: This paper is freely available to you if either (1) you are on the campus network or (2) you use VPN (TunnelAll) when you are on the commercial Internet. Otherwise you see it costs $45 to download. Don't pay that.
This paper offers an excellent discussion of implicit contracts (the invisible handshake) and explains how they govern the employment relationship. It then talks about the macroeconomic implications of such implicit contracts and, in particular, explains why inflation was persistent in the late 1970s long after the sources that caused the inflation had been removed.
7. Gompers and Lerner - The Venture Capital Revolution
Normal capital markets require collateral from the borrower to secure a loan. This requirement is no big deal for established firms but it is an effective block for startups who are then constrained financially. While most startups fail, some succeed fabulously. There is then reason to have a market for high risk/high reward capital investment. While we won't otherwise spend much time talking about finance issues in the class, this particular type of firm should be considered, and separately from the way we consider other firms that produce goods or services.
8. Richard Freeman - When Workers Share in the Profits
Shared capitalism has been touted as a solution to (1) address the employee moral hazard problem and (2) address income inequality. This paper gives an overview of the various possible ways for shared capitalism to manifest and then offers up a critique of the effectiveness of the various approaches.
9. Akerlof and Kranton - Identity and the Economics of Organizations
As we have tried to stress in the class, there are limits to how much cash incentives can accomplish and indeed those incentives may have pernicious consequences. This paper looks at alternative ways to motivate employees - via Identity, clearly not a pure economics concept but surely an interesting one. This paper represents another of those that meld economics with other social sciences, which really is the direction the discipline should be taking.
We'll allocate papers to teams a week from tomorrow. Between now and then I will give some instructions on what the course projects will be like. For now, you might see if you have a preference for a particular paper.
1. Ronald Coase - The Nature of the Firm
This is where the subject matter all started. Coase, who won the Nobel prize for Economics though he actually was a Law professor at the University of Chicago, asks a very elemental question. Why are there firms? Whey don't all transactions happen within markets? '
2. Oliver Williamson - Transaction Cost Economics: An Introduction
Williamson is another Nobel Prize winner and the person who took the baton from Coase and advanced the field. He is most known for his work on governance of contracts and this paper gives a nice overview of how that works and helps to keep transaction costs under control.
3. Alchian and Demsetz - Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization
This paper gives an answer to the question of why there are firms - team production. It also explains why the owner/entrepreneur should be the manager of the other team members as well as the residual claimant on the profit the firm generates. It offers a very good theory of the capitalism of small businesses.
4. Alfred Chandler - Organizational Capabilities and the Economic History of the Industrial Enterprise
While we have been emphasizing transaction costs in class, this paper takes a comparative view of various possible explanations of the firm and notes that the evidence doesn't really favor the transactions cost approach. It is interesting to see the implications of the different approaches when contrasted side by side.
5. Klein, Crawford, and Alchian - Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process
This is the most famous paper on the holdup problem. It gives a very general description of the issue and then uses some historical examples to illustrate. One of those examples we will discuss in class, the case of Fisher Body and General Motors.
6. Arthur Okun - The Invisible Handshake and the Inflationary Process
NOTE: This paper is freely available to you if either (1) you are on the campus network or (2) you use VPN (TunnelAll) when you are on the commercial Internet. Otherwise you see it costs $45 to download. Don't pay that.
This paper offers an excellent discussion of implicit contracts (the invisible handshake) and explains how they govern the employment relationship. It then talks about the macroeconomic implications of such implicit contracts and, in particular, explains why inflation was persistent in the late 1970s long after the sources that caused the inflation had been removed.
7. Gompers and Lerner - The Venture Capital Revolution
Normal capital markets require collateral from the borrower to secure a loan. This requirement is no big deal for established firms but it is an effective block for startups who are then constrained financially. While most startups fail, some succeed fabulously. There is then reason to have a market for high risk/high reward capital investment. While we won't otherwise spend much time talking about finance issues in the class, this particular type of firm should be considered, and separately from the way we consider other firms that produce goods or services.
8. Richard Freeman - When Workers Share in the Profits
Shared capitalism has been touted as a solution to (1) address the employee moral hazard problem and (2) address income inequality. This paper gives an overview of the various possible ways for shared capitalism to manifest and then offers up a critique of the effectiveness of the various approaches.
9. Akerlof and Kranton - Identity and the Economics of Organizations
As we have tried to stress in the class, there are limits to how much cash incentives can accomplish and indeed those incentives may have pernicious consequences. This paper looks at alternative ways to motivate employees - via Identity, clearly not a pure economics concept but surely an interesting one. This paper represents another of those that meld economics with other social sciences, which really is the direction the discipline should be taking.
Grades Uploaded/Emails to Some Students/Evaluating Class Session
I did some updating of the class grade book in Moodle. The new entries are the Excel homework on Efficiency and Equity Concepts, as well as the last two blog posts. I also updated the bonus points entry to included the evaluations of the fifth and sixth class session.
Some students seem to have missed some class work without letting me know why. I may have emailed you about it. If not, but you know you missed some work, you can send a message to me to let me know why. I hope it doesn't become a pattern and that you can complete all the class work and in a timely fashion.
We will return to doing evaluations of class sessions starting with the session tomorrow. And if we have some time left after discussing the blog posts, we will try to do the experiment that we didn't do last Thursday.
Some students seem to have missed some class work without letting me know why. I may have emailed you about it. If not, but you know you missed some work, you can send a message to me to let me know why. I hope it doesn't become a pattern and that you can complete all the class work and in a timely fashion.
We will return to doing evaluations of class sessions starting with the session tomorrow. And if we have some time left after discussing the blog posts, we will try to do the experiment that we didn't do last Thursday.
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Something You Might Find Interesting to Read
Below is a snip from a post on my blog that I wrote back when I was still working full time (so quite a while ago). The intended audience was not students. It was learning technology professionals. They don't get practical ethics training. There is university ethics training now but it is entirely unsuitable to help somebody work through the issues they will confront. Judgment is needed, not just adherence to rules. So in the post I tried to do a think aloud about the ethical issues. If you read this you will see repeated mention that where to draw the line between productive activity and corruption is very hard to do. It is. Also, in the lead up part there is mention of corruption in a variety of different contexts. In particular a movie called The Insider with Russell Crowe and Al Pacino is mentioned. If you haven't seen it, I recommend doing so both for the entertainment value and for illustrating the underlying issues.
Thursday, September 21, 2017
Standards versus Lock In - Is innovation always a good thing?
Sometimes you don't want innovation. The solution you have is as good as it is going to get, so you want to stick with it and have everyone else use it too. Some simple examples: 1) traffic lights - green means go, red means stop, 2) side of the street to drive - we drive on the right side of the street. The left side is for oncoming traffic. It is arbitrary which is which but you want consistency in the implementation. (Today I saw somebody driving the wrong way down Sixth Street, where it changes from two-way to one-way.) 3) electric outlets - you can plug in your electric device into any outlet at any location in the U.S., but would need an adapter to do so in Europe. Standards of this sort facilitate trade and actually promotes competition. Lack of a standard encourages monopoly.
The difference between lock in and standards is that with the former you can readily identify a potential superior alternative --- if only you could get there. With a standard, the superior alternative doesn't exist.
In some cases you get some of both. The English system for distances, weights, and volume measures (miles, pounds, and quarts) is a standard in the U.S., but not globally. The metric system is a different standard and some would say is better because our number system is base 10 and the metric system takes advantage of that. I remember some time ago (perhaps in the 1970s, though that I can't recall) there was a push in the U.S. to move to the metric system. It failed. That failure demonstrates lock in.
* * * * *
I gave a simplistic view of innovation in our class today, which may have been sufficient to critique the static efficiency concepts that were covered in the Excel homework, but is less good as a way of understanding reality.
In the simplistic depiction, innovation is alway purely a good. In reality, innovation may have both good and bad aspects to it. Here are a few examples to illustrate: The smartphone, which I extolled in class day, obviously is beneficial in helping us to interconnect, but it may make us anti-social, by preferring to have our heads in our devices than to have face to face conversation with other people. Certain antibiotics, while fighting current strands of bacteria, surely a good thing, also encourage new strands of bacteria that are resistant to the drug, a bad thing. Labor saving innovation via robots and artificial intelligence may be a boon for the companies that use these technologies but are a bane for the employees who lose their jobs as a result.
Using the metaphor - sometimes the cure is worse than the disease - it is not obvious that on whole any particular innovation is s good thing. One really needs to do the cost-benefit analysis on a case-by-case basis to determine that.
The difference between lock in and standards is that with the former you can readily identify a potential superior alternative --- if only you could get there. With a standard, the superior alternative doesn't exist.
In some cases you get some of both. The English system for distances, weights, and volume measures (miles, pounds, and quarts) is a standard in the U.S., but not globally. The metric system is a different standard and some would say is better because our number system is base 10 and the metric system takes advantage of that. I remember some time ago (perhaps in the 1970s, though that I can't recall) there was a push in the U.S. to move to the metric system. It failed. That failure demonstrates lock in.
* * * * *
I gave a simplistic view of innovation in our class today, which may have been sufficient to critique the static efficiency concepts that were covered in the Excel homework, but is less good as a way of understanding reality.
In the simplistic depiction, innovation is alway purely a good. In reality, innovation may have both good and bad aspects to it. Here are a few examples to illustrate: The smartphone, which I extolled in class day, obviously is beneficial in helping us to interconnect, but it may make us anti-social, by preferring to have our heads in our devices than to have face to face conversation with other people. Certain antibiotics, while fighting current strands of bacteria, surely a good thing, also encourage new strands of bacteria that are resistant to the drug, a bad thing. Labor saving innovation via robots and artificial intelligence may be a boon for the companies that use these technologies but are a bane for the employees who lose their jobs as a result.
Using the metaphor - sometimes the cure is worse than the disease - it is not obvious that on whole any particular innovation is s good thing. One really needs to do the cost-benefit analysis on a case-by-case basis to determine that.
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Commenting on a Post by Another Student
First, let me say something about the length of the comment. One decent paragraph should suffice. Your comments don't have to be as long as mine. One short sentence is not sufficient. I am not going to do a word minimum like with the blog posts themselves. I hope there enough here to address that concern.
Your big picture goal in offering up a comment is to help make the students next post better. I am not going to try to measure on delivery of that goal, but that is what you are aiming for.
Now some specific ideas on the content of your comment (Choose one.)
1. If you have a question about reading the post, pose the question along with some background about why it occurred to you. Implicitly you may be asking whether the question should have occurred to the post author ahead of time. In accord with the big picture goal, part of the blogging is to anticipate such questions ahead of time.
2. If you have had a similar experience you might write about that and then compare it to the experience that the post author describes. Did the author draw the same sort of conclusions as you had drawn for your experience? If not, why is that?
3. If you take issue with something the author wrote, that is fair game but please use a respectful tone when making your points. The goal is to produce better understand the situation, not for you to win the argument.
4. Anything else that occurs to you that fits - if I had written the piece what sort of comments would I want to be getting?
Your big picture goal in offering up a comment is to help make the students next post better. I am not going to try to measure on delivery of that goal, but that is what you are aiming for.
Now some specific ideas on the content of your comment (Choose one.)
1. If you have a question about reading the post, pose the question along with some background about why it occurred to you. Implicitly you may be asking whether the question should have occurred to the post author ahead of time. In accord with the big picture goal, part of the blogging is to anticipate such questions ahead of time.
2. If you have had a similar experience you might write about that and then compare it to the experience that the post author describes. Did the author draw the same sort of conclusions as you had drawn for your experience? If not, why is that?
3. If you take issue with something the author wrote, that is fair game but please use a respectful tone when making your points. The goal is to produce better understand the situation, not for you to win the argument.
4. Anything else that occurs to you that fits - if I had written the piece what sort of comments would I want to be getting?
Tomorrow in class - lecture for half the time - then an experiment
Tomorrow, I am planning to first review the Excel homework that is due this evening, then go through a brief presentation on related issues.
If you want more background information than that, you can find such information below.
Partial Equilibrium Approach - Social Surplus
YouTube Videos
Social Surplus Basics
Allocating Surplus in the Presence of a Unit Tax
Allocating Surplus - Monopoly
Excel Workbook
Cost-Benefit Analysis.xlsx
General Equilibrium/Edgeworth Box Approach
YouTube Videos
Welcome and Deconstruction
Barter
Consumer A's Choice
Existence and Uniqueness of Competitive Equilibrium
Pareto Improvement
First and Second Welfare Theorems
Excel Workbook
Edgeworth Box.xlsx
Word Document
Notes on General Equilibrium.docx
If you want more background information than that, you can find such information below.
Partial Equilibrium Approach - Social Surplus
YouTube Videos
Social Surplus Basics
Allocating Surplus in the Presence of a Unit Tax
Allocating Surplus - Monopoly
Excel Workbook
Cost-Benefit Analysis.xlsx
General Equilibrium/Edgeworth Box Approach
YouTube Videos
Welcome and Deconstruction
Barter
Consumer A's Choice
Existence and Uniqueness of Competitive Equilibrium
Pareto Improvement
First and Second Welfare Theorems
Excel Workbook
Edgeworth Box.xlsx
Word Document
Notes on General Equilibrium.docx
Selfishness and Good Citizenship - Reconciling the two
Yesterday in class we talked about "having ownership" in an activity as a way for the person to be engaged in what the group was doing. A different expression you sometimes hear that conveys a similar meaning is "taking pride in one's work" where that can apply to either individual effort or a group activity. In the Master-Apprentice model, where the apprentice learns from the master, part of the training is, of course, on the right technique to apply to the work. But another part of the training, not always noted, is that the master conveys this attitude about having ownership in the work.
I want to introduce another expression that applies during the time when the work is done. The artisan, who has a good eye as to something that is well done, "pleases himself" or "pleases herself" while doing the work. This is the selfish part. As a producer you do the very best you can and if you meet your own high standards, or possibly even exceed them, there is reward in that you've done an excellent job. The product of that work might then be sold to a customer or given to a co-worker as part of gift exchange on the job. That is the good citizenship part.
Selfishness that we think of as not being good citizenship is claiming disproportional reward after the work has been completed, leaving others to have to pay for your ill gotten gain.
* * * * *
I want to briefly apply these ideas to the blogging you will do in the class. Part of what you need to get a sense of, beyond the subject matter of an individual post, is how a good essay of this sort reads. In other words, you develop a sense of taste for the writing. Normally, this comes from your reading other writing and trying to identify those pieces you like very much. Then you develop your sense of taste by imitating writers whom you like. Imitation in this way is like the Master-Apprentice model, except that the Master is not physically present.
In other words, I encourage you to please yourself in the blogging and not try to please me. This may seem odd because students are enculturated to get approval from the professor. But you can't possibly know what will please me as a reader of your blog posts. So you need to learn to trust your own judgment about what you find pleasing in the writing and produce to the standard that you set for yourself. This is one reason why getting comfortable with the blogging will take a while. You are not used to doing it yet.
I want to introduce another expression that applies during the time when the work is done. The artisan, who has a good eye as to something that is well done, "pleases himself" or "pleases herself" while doing the work. This is the selfish part. As a producer you do the very best you can and if you meet your own high standards, or possibly even exceed them, there is reward in that you've done an excellent job. The product of that work might then be sold to a customer or given to a co-worker as part of gift exchange on the job. That is the good citizenship part.
Selfishness that we think of as not being good citizenship is claiming disproportional reward after the work has been completed, leaving others to have to pay for your ill gotten gain.
* * * * *
I want to briefly apply these ideas to the blogging you will do in the class. Part of what you need to get a sense of, beyond the subject matter of an individual post, is how a good essay of this sort reads. In other words, you develop a sense of taste for the writing. Normally, this comes from your reading other writing and trying to identify those pieces you like very much. Then you develop your sense of taste by imitating writers whom you like. Imitation in this way is like the Master-Apprentice model, except that the Master is not physically present.
In other words, I encourage you to please yourself in the blogging and not try to please me. This may seem odd because students are enculturated to get approval from the professor. But you can't possibly know what will please me as a reader of your blog posts. So you need to learn to trust your own judgment about what you find pleasing in the writing and produce to the standard that you set for yourself. This is one reason why getting comfortable with the blogging will take a while. You are not used to doing it yet.
Excel Homework on Strategic Look at the Efficiency Principle
The homework goes beyond the Milgrom and Roberts textbook because I think it is important to have a mature view of when to expect rational people to produce efficiency and when that won't happen. Also note that efficiency here is contained to the parties of the bargain only. If outsiders get screwed as a result, looking at that you might say the situation is not really efficient, but such an example doesn't count as a violation of M&R's principle. If the parties in the bargain themselves can't reach an agreement, that would be an example that violated M&R's principle.
Also note that the homework only works through the case of two-player games. It doesn't consider the multi-player case. That is for simplicity in the modeling, not for realism.
As with all the Excel homework, if you have questions about this one, please write them as a comment to this post.
Also note that the homework only works through the case of two-player games. It doesn't consider the multi-player case. That is for simplicity in the modeling, not for realism.
As with all the Excel homework, if you have questions about this one, please write them as a comment to this post.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Thankfully, we don't have class on Friday.
I'm pretty sure I got this email because I have a parking spot behind BIF, which I pay for. That lot is used for parking during football games. So they are letting the parking patrons know of some inconvenience that will happen before the game with Nebraska. Something similar happens when there are volleyball games scheduled at Huff Gym. But the numbers who attend those are much lower than who attend football games.
It used to be that ALL college football games nationally were scheduled on Saturday. You might be surprised to learn that when I was at Cornell, classes like ours met three different times per week (for 50 minutes per session) rather than twice a week like ours does now. Most of my classes were MWF, but I did have a couple that had Saturday sessions. Somehow they could accommodate that, even with a home football game - the football parking was separated from the Arts and Sciences Quad where I had my classes.
I try hard not to bring in outside political issues into our class. That is disruptive in a way that I don't think is helpful. But this is an inside issue. The universities primary mission had already ceded Saturdays to football in fall, when we have have a home game. In my opinion, that should suffice. This alternative schedule with games on Friday night or Thursday night does not benefit the academic side of the house at all. So, I for one think it is an error that we've gone down that path. I am not personally inconvenienced by this as I am not typically on campus on Friday afternoons, but I still think it is wrong.
It used to be that ALL college football games nationally were scheduled on Saturday. You might be surprised to learn that when I was at Cornell, classes like ours met three different times per week (for 50 minutes per session) rather than twice a week like ours does now. Most of my classes were MWF, but I did have a couple that had Saturday sessions. Somehow they could accommodate that, even with a home football game - the football parking was separated from the Arts and Sciences Quad where I had my classes.
I try hard not to bring in outside political issues into our class. That is disruptive in a way that I don't think is helpful. But this is an inside issue. The universities primary mission had already ceded Saturdays to football in fall, when we have have a home game. In my opinion, that should suffice. This alternative schedule with games on Friday night or Thursday night does not benefit the academic side of the house at all. So, I for one think it is an error that we've gone down that path. I am not personally inconvenienced by this as I am not typically on campus on Friday afternoons, but I still think it is wrong.
Team Assignments/Commenting when Teammates haven't posted.
Today we did team allocations. I heard back from most teams that were assigned. When I've heard from all I will post the results in Moodle. (Update, they are posted now.) That will include team name and the alias economist for each team member.
All teams that have been allocated have 3 team members. The obligation is to comment on the posts of your teammates before the next class on Tuesday, as long as your teammates have made their posts at a reasonable time. I'm going to leave it to each team to determine what the means.
However, there needs to be a fallback in case a teammate doesn't make a post in time. You are then free to comment on the post of some other student in the class. The obligation is to make two such comments each week.
We currently have four students who weren't allocated to any team. Their choices would seem to be either to have one big team, with all four of them, or two teams of two students each. If you are one of those students who weren't there today and you have not yet received and email from me allocating you to a team, please let me know what your preference is.
Note that eventually each team will have a course project to do and that for the project (but not for the comments on the blog posts) each team member will get the same number of points allocated.
All teams that have been allocated have 3 team members. The obligation is to comment on the posts of your teammates before the next class on Tuesday, as long as your teammates have made their posts at a reasonable time. I'm going to leave it to each team to determine what the means.
However, there needs to be a fallback in case a teammate doesn't make a post in time. You are then free to comment on the post of some other student in the class. The obligation is to make two such comments each week.
We currently have four students who weren't allocated to any team. Their choices would seem to be either to have one big team, with all four of them, or two teams of two students each. If you are one of those students who weren't there today and you have not yet received and email from me allocating you to a team, please let me know what your preference is.
Note that eventually each team will have a course project to do and that for the project (but not for the comments on the blog posts) each team member will get the same number of points allocated.
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Coordination Problems in Our Class
As of right now, there are still 3 students who have yet to set up a blog for the class and another nine students who have not submitted a post on their experience with organizations.
I'm a bit frustrated by this. However, I don't want to be punitive right out of the box. If you can get the post done by the early afternoon tomorrow, I will still accept it and try to comment on it.
I will also be sending an email message to those people, in case they check that rather than check the class site.
I'm a bit frustrated by this. However, I don't want to be punitive right out of the box. If you can get the post done by the early afternoon tomorrow, I will still accept it and try to comment on it.
I will also be sending an email message to those people, in case they check that rather than check the class site.
Saturday, September 16, 2017
An Observation About The Substance of Student Posts This Week
I thought you'd get a kick out of this quote, as many of you reported experiences with a manager that were less than stellar.
It remains to ask why there are many managers who don't do their jobs well. I thought we'd discuss it some in class on Tuesday, as well as to consider whether the observation is consistent to organizations functioning in an efficient manner or not.
Perhaps the most famous explanation, meant a bit tongue in cheek, is the Peter Principle.
It remains to ask why there are many managers who don't do their jobs well. I thought we'd discuss it some in class on Tuesday, as well as to consider whether the observation is consistent to organizations functioning in an efficient manner or not.
Perhaps the most famous explanation, meant a bit tongue in cheek, is the Peter Principle.
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Speaking of Snake Oil Salesman
Equifax is the latest prominent example. I'm not sure the comparison with Enron is apt, as Equifax seems more guilty of negligence than of fraud, but in terms of the scale of the harm done they are similar.
A little more on transaction costs
I encourage you to both read M&R chapter 2 where transaction costs are discussed and to review the presentation materials for both the class this past Tuesday and the class today.
Here is another little anecdote to illustrate the issue. My wife had our house built to her specification and worked with a contractor she liked to get that done. In turn, the contractor hired out various subcontractors to do particular work on the house. We only paid the contractor for the work when the house was completed. We did not know the details about the arrangements between the contractor and the subcontractor.
A few years ago we had flooding in our basement. The sump pump stopped working and we had a lot of standing water. All the carpet was damaged and had to be replaced. We had insurance cover some of it, but we still had a lot of out of pocket cost. Worse still was the not knowing why it happened. We brought in a couple of different companies to fix it and figure out what was going on.
Ultimately one company had a sophisticated camera to make a movie about the pipeline from the house to the development's water line. It turned out the pipeline had burst - a tree root had broken through the pipe.
After further inspection, the subcontractor who had put in the pipe used high quality pipe to the boundary of our property but then used cheap pipe from the boundary to the development's water line. The tree burst the cheap pipe.
Use of cheap pipe in this instance is just like selling snake oil. It is something impossible to monitor once the pipe is laid underground. At the time of install it might be determined whether the building materials are high quality. But we didn't find out about the problem till more than 10 years after we had lived in the house. I am sure the contractor we used had long since retired by then.
So, for the subcontractor who saved a few bucks on cheaper pipe, we went through all this grief with a flooded basement. We would have gladly paid the subcontractor up front whatever he saved on the cheaper pipe, but of course we weren't given that option at the time. And had we paid him, he still might have used the cheaper pipe.
In this case, he needed to be watched like a hawk while he was doing the work. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.
Here is another little anecdote to illustrate the issue. My wife had our house built to her specification and worked with a contractor she liked to get that done. In turn, the contractor hired out various subcontractors to do particular work on the house. We only paid the contractor for the work when the house was completed. We did not know the details about the arrangements between the contractor and the subcontractor.
A few years ago we had flooding in our basement. The sump pump stopped working and we had a lot of standing water. All the carpet was damaged and had to be replaced. We had insurance cover some of it, but we still had a lot of out of pocket cost. Worse still was the not knowing why it happened. We brought in a couple of different companies to fix it and figure out what was going on.
Ultimately one company had a sophisticated camera to make a movie about the pipeline from the house to the development's water line. It turned out the pipeline had burst - a tree root had broken through the pipe.
After further inspection, the subcontractor who had put in the pipe used high quality pipe to the boundary of our property but then used cheap pipe from the boundary to the development's water line. The tree burst the cheap pipe.
Use of cheap pipe in this instance is just like selling snake oil. It is something impossible to monitor once the pipe is laid underground. At the time of install it might be determined whether the building materials are high quality. But we didn't find out about the problem till more than 10 years after we had lived in the house. I am sure the contractor we used had long since retired by then.
So, for the subcontractor who saved a few bucks on cheaper pipe, we went through all this grief with a flooded basement. We would have gladly paid the subcontractor up front whatever he saved on the cheaper pipe, but of course we weren't given that option at the time. And had we paid him, he still might have used the cheaper pipe.
In this case, he needed to be watched like a hawk while he was doing the work. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.
Evaluation of Sixth Class Session
Here is the form. We spent more time going over the presentation materials from Tuesday about transaction costs than we did talking about the content meant for today. So we will spend some time next Tuesday to get get caught up.
Some Work History Relevant for Our Class/About The Excel Homework
SCALE.....Mallard......Before Mallard there was Plato.
CET..... Me as Director of CET..... Story about Leslie as office manager then Assistant Director
Later merged with CCSO to become CITES.
-------
Excelets Page
profarvan channel at YouTube
--------------
Further thoughts on Excel homework
1. Dialogic - presentation and assessment are mixed together.
2. Somewhat limited - you need more practice than I can give you.
3. Students sometimes rush through these to get them done. They can be redone for practice by choosing a different alias.
CET..... Me as Director of CET..... Story about Leslie as office manager then Assistant Director
Later merged with CCSO to become CITES.
-------
Excelets Page
profarvan channel at YouTube
--------------
Further thoughts on Excel homework
1. Dialogic - presentation and assessment are mixed together.
2. Somewhat limited - you need more practice than I can give you.
3. Students sometimes rush through these to get them done. They can be redone for practice by choosing a different alias.
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Moodle Activated, Initial Grade Upload Completed
You can access the class site in Moodle now. We will use this site for the grade book and to post files that probably shouldn't be made publicly available but should be available to members of the class. Regarding the latter, you should see a folder that includes the survey results for the first four class sessions, with the responses students gave in evaluating the class session. My reading of this information is that we are getting a little better in class function over time and there is some preference for the horseshoe seating arrangement over the more traditional layout.
On the grades let me explain what I did. First, when I upload text information rather than numerical grade information that goes into the Feedback column. This time the text information was the economist used to form your alias and if you wrote the blog post about your economist there is an "x" placed to track that you did the post. This way you know that I know you did the work. Every once in a while I miss things - doing clerical work really is not my bag. When that happens please don't get upset. Just let me know by email and I will correct the matter soon thereafter.
Regarding points, the bonus points item should have an entry in it. You get 5 points for each of the evaluation surveys you submit. I did this for the first four classes only, since those surveys are now done. I didn't do it for the class session yesterday, since that survey is now pending. So the most that could be earned is 20 points for now. Ultimately, the maximum that can be earned over the semester is 50 points.
I also did an upload of the Tutorial Excel homework, even though that too is pending. I will revise that tomorrow after the homework deadline. I thought for now it will help you to see how you get credit for the homework, for those who have done it already. You get 10 points for each Excel homework that you turn in.
On the grades let me explain what I did. First, when I upload text information rather than numerical grade information that goes into the Feedback column. This time the text information was the economist used to form your alias and if you wrote the blog post about your economist there is an "x" placed to track that you did the post. This way you know that I know you did the work. Every once in a while I miss things - doing clerical work really is not my bag. When that happens please don't get upset. Just let me know by email and I will correct the matter soon thereafter.
Regarding points, the bonus points item should have an entry in it. You get 5 points for each of the evaluation surveys you submit. I did this for the first four classes only, since those surveys are now done. I didn't do it for the class session yesterday, since that survey is now pending. So the most that could be earned is 20 points for now. Ultimately, the maximum that can be earned over the semester is 50 points.
I also did an upload of the Tutorial Excel homework, even though that too is pending. I will revise that tomorrow after the homework deadline. I thought for now it will help you to see how you get credit for the homework, for those who have done it already. You get 10 points for each Excel homework that you turn in.
Excel Homework Due 9/20 at 11 PM
If you have questions or comments about the Excel Homework on Efficiency Concepts, please post them as comments to this post. Do not email me with those. Only email me about the homework if you are having some technical issue that prevents you from completing it.
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Evaluation of Fifth Class Session
For those who have recently added the class, completing the form (if you've attended the session) gives you some bonus points (5 of them). You can amass up to 50 points this way. The course itself has 1,000 points. To get an A you need 900 points. So the bonus points can be helpful.
Here is the form. And below is the calendar entry for today's class session.
M&R Chapter 1, historical examples of different organization structures as ways to innovate on previous structures and changes in the economic environment. Transactions costs from chapter 2. B&D Chapter 1, the four frames.
pptx file
pdf file
Here is the form. And below is the calendar entry for today's class session.
M&R Chapter 1, historical examples of different organization structures as ways to innovate on previous structures and changes in the economic environment. Transactions costs from chapter 2. B&D Chapter 1, the four frames.
pptx file
pdf file
For today's class session
Map of Hudson Bay
Peter Drucker (Business Guru) On Communcation
More on Drucker and Communication
General Motors and Fisher Body
Peter Drucker (Business Guru) On Communcation
The active party in any communication is the listener.
More on Drucker and Communication
General Motors and Fisher Body
Saturday, September 9, 2017
Very Interesting Piece About Kevin Anderson
Kevin Anderson is in the finals of the U.S. Open. This piece gives some background about his time at Illinois. You wouldn't think of our campus as a hotbed for tennis, but it was and might be again.
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Some Follow Up to Today's Class Session
Things I forgot to say but had to planned to mention
About your alias - Some students have been assuming (incorrectly) that each alias was selected because there work is somehow relevant to our class. That is true for some of the economists on the list but not others. I tried to get some classical economists on the list and some contemporary economists as well. I also tried for some alphabetical variation in the names so it is easier to sort that way. Also, I made a point of identifying women, where that otherwise made sense. Economics as a profession has some issues on the gender front, some of that very recent. So it is appropriate that you be exposed to some prominent women economists.
On that front, most of you are aware of the Nobel Prize in Economics. You may not know, however, about the John Bates Clark Medal, given out by the American Economics Association to the best economist under 40. Some of the winners on that list have since gone on to win the Nobel Prize. I consulted that list in choosing some of the aliases.
That said, I don't change these from year to year because the names are now embedded in the technology - the Excel and the Google Forms. It would be a lot of work for me to change these and it is just the type of clerical work that I really don't like to do.
This is why your alias is so odd. Putting the fall 2017 piece after the Econ 490 part make the alias unique. Students from last year and the years before that have had similar aliases, but with the semester that their course was offered.
On the economics of the music industry - I didn't ask, but should have, how one provider differs from another. Do they all have the same music? Or is some music only available with one provider? Have you ever experienced having access to music for a while, but then losing access? If so, do you know why that happened.
Also, if I had the time, I would have explored what you do for TV and movies. Would you prefer a different provider for that than for music? Or would you want those services bundled?
Then, I don't think anyone mentioned YouTube today. So I should have asked whether there are any free archives, using YouTube as an example, that you access for music and/or for video.
I should have also asked about music in your car. Do you play it off your phone or do you have radio in your car and if so is that over the air or satellite radio?
One other question I would have been interested in pursuing is whether you know what type of music your parents listen to. Ditto for your grandparents. And then, how do they access that music?
Some links about stuff I mentioned in class
The Tipping Point - this book got quite a lot of attention when it came out.
How to get a job at Google. This is the original column by Tom Friedman and here is the follow up column.
I looked for but did not find the piece I mentioned that was written by a recruiter and posted in LinkedIn.
About your alias - Some students have been assuming (incorrectly) that each alias was selected because there work is somehow relevant to our class. That is true for some of the economists on the list but not others. I tried to get some classical economists on the list and some contemporary economists as well. I also tried for some alphabetical variation in the names so it is easier to sort that way. Also, I made a point of identifying women, where that otherwise made sense. Economics as a profession has some issues on the gender front, some of that very recent. So it is appropriate that you be exposed to some prominent women economists.
On that front, most of you are aware of the Nobel Prize in Economics. You may not know, however, about the John Bates Clark Medal, given out by the American Economics Association to the best economist under 40. Some of the winners on that list have since gone on to win the Nobel Prize. I consulted that list in choosing some of the aliases.
That said, I don't change these from year to year because the names are now embedded in the technology - the Excel and the Google Forms. It would be a lot of work for me to change these and it is just the type of clerical work that I really don't like to do.
This is why your alias is so odd. Putting the fall 2017 piece after the Econ 490 part make the alias unique. Students from last year and the years before that have had similar aliases, but with the semester that their course was offered.
On the economics of the music industry - I didn't ask, but should have, how one provider differs from another. Do they all have the same music? Or is some music only available with one provider? Have you ever experienced having access to music for a while, but then losing access? If so, do you know why that happened.
Also, if I had the time, I would have explored what you do for TV and movies. Would you prefer a different provider for that than for music? Or would you want those services bundled?
Then, I don't think anyone mentioned YouTube today. So I should have asked whether there are any free archives, using YouTube as an example, that you access for music and/or for video.
I should have also asked about music in your car. Do you play it off your phone or do you have radio in your car and if so is that over the air or satellite radio?
One other question I would have been interested in pursuing is whether you know what type of music your parents listen to. Ditto for your grandparents. And then, how do they access that music?
Some links about stuff I mentioned in class
The Tipping Point - this book got quite a lot of attention when it came out.
How to get a job at Google. This is the original column by Tom Friedman and here is the follow up column.
I looked for but did not find the piece I mentioned that was written by a recruiter and posted in LinkedIn.
Evaluation of Fourth Class Session
Sorry to post this a little late. I've been a bit absent minded today. Here is the form. I felt we were a tad to big to be in the horseshoe today. But I didn't realize that ahead of time. I wonder whether you now have a preference for one seating arrangement over the other. If you do, I'd appreciate hearing about that in the comments.
Connecting Bits of Information
The image below can be found in the PowerPoint for the First Class Session. It is meant to illustrate that knowledge is about connections between different pieces of information. In our class I want to make explicit that building connections is one of the main goals. Both class discussion and the blogging that you will be doing are meant to produce connections.
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Excel Homework Due 9/13 at 11 PM
This homework should be straightforward. However, if you have some difficulty please post a question as a comment to this post. You can also try to catch me after class or set up a meeting with me at some other time. In either case, you should have your laptop with you then so we can see what the issue is in your own computing environment.
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Background information on the theory of the firm from intermediate micro
I assume that you already know about production functions, cost curves, and equations like P = MC to characterize a competitive firm's output choice. But if you'd like to review that stuff, below is a bunch of material for you to look at.
Excel Workbook: The Firm and Competitive Supply
YouTube Videos:
Production Possibilities
Isoquants
Short Run Production Function
Table for SR Production
Short Run Cost
SR Cost Table
SR Industry Supply
LR Average Cost
LR Industry Supply
Excel Workbook: The Firm and Competitive Supply
YouTube Videos:
Production Possibilities
Isoquants
Short Run Production Function
Table for SR Production
Short Run Cost
SR Cost Table
SR Industry Supply
LR Average Cost
LR Industry Supply
Evaluation of Third Class Session
We will continue with these surveys for this next week and then take a look see about them. Current enrollment in the class is 32. If everybody shows up, the class size will pose a challenge to run the class in discussion mode and get lots of participation. I do want to encourage attendance (that's part of the purpose of these surveys). And I do believe in having ambitious goals. But I don't like to have goals that are not attainable, even after substantial effort and creativity is put in. So we'll make some recalibration about this next week.
In the meantime, here is the form for the third class session. And below is the calendar entry for this class.
An overview of the Nobel Address by Herbert Simon and why actual organizations are unlike how they are modeled in the neoclassical economics (intermediate micro) approach.
pptx file:
pdf file:
In the meantime, here is the form for the third class session. And below is the calendar entry for this class.
An overview of the Nobel Address by Herbert Simon and why actual organizations are unlike how they are modeled in the neoclassical economics (intermediate micro) approach.
pptx file:
pdf file:
Opportunism
This is an important concept for us. In last year's class it was evident that some students were unfamiliar with this word, so I thought I'd put the primary definition here.
Monday, September 4, 2017
Dan Ariely Ted Talk - What Motivates Us at Work?
Ariely is a leading behavioral economist. He describes a variety of experiments about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The video is interesting in the way these ideas are deconstructed. It should be noted that in all the experiments, it is the experimenter who tasks the participant with the work. I believe there is substantial motivation to be found in self-tasking. I hope we get to talk about that later in the semester.
Friday, September 1, 2017
In case you haven't already heard this one...
A physicist, a chemist and an economist are stranded on an island, with nothing to eat. A can of soup washes ashore. The physicist says, "Lets smash the can open with a rock." The chemist says, "Lets build a fire and heat the can first." The economist says, "Lets assume that we have a can-opener..."
This one and a bunch of other economist jokes can be found here.
This one and a bunch of other economist jokes can be found here.
Some Blogging Factoids
Photo of your alias
If you find a photo image of the economist who gives the first part of your alias, you can download that and then re-upload it to your Blogger profile. There is a section for profile image. If you include that image, then all your most current post listed on the class site will have a thumbnail of the image, as will any comments you make.
This is not necessary, but it is a nice touch that will personalize our site more.
Hyperlinks in posts
Unlike what you may be used to in other online environments, if you simply paste a link into your blog editor it will publish the text of the link, but the link itself will not be live. To make a live link, you need to select the link tool from the toolbar. Also, the custom is to highlight some text and link that rather than to insert the url into your text.
Hyperlinks in comments
There is no toolbar for making comments. Comments do accept basic html commands. So if you are comfortable with that you can use those commands to put in a link or to format your text. If you are not comfortable with that, ignore this. It is not necessary. I really don't know if it is a skill that people need to have after they graduate. Ten years ago I would have said it was. Now, I'm not sure.
If you find a photo image of the economist who gives the first part of your alias, you can download that and then re-upload it to your Blogger profile. There is a section for profile image. If you include that image, then all your most current post listed on the class site will have a thumbnail of the image, as will any comments you make.
This is not necessary, but it is a nice touch that will personalize our site more.
Hyperlinks in posts
Unlike what you may be used to in other online environments, if you simply paste a link into your blog editor it will publish the text of the link, but the link itself will not be live. To make a live link, you need to select the link tool from the toolbar. Also, the custom is to highlight some text and link that rather than to insert the url into your text.
Hyperlinks in comments
There is no toolbar for making comments. Comments do accept basic html commands. So if you are comfortable with that you can use those commands to put in a link or to format your text. If you are not comfortable with that, ignore this. It is not necessary. I really don't know if it is a skill that people need to have after they graduate. Ten years ago I would have said it was. Now, I'm not sure.
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