Econ Thought For the Day - Something Fun To Do

[ItalianFX]

I found this guy's website, http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Ha...onThought.htm. It's the "Thought of the Day" and it is always related to Economics. I enjoy checking it to see if he has updated it and see how he relates everyday life to Economics. I figured this would be a little something fun to do.

This is todays:
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November 15, 2007—A student was in my office hours yesterday and asked a very specific question. I gave a sheepish look, and she asked why I was looking that way. I hemmed and hawed, then blurted out that I had a question on exactly that point on today’s quiz. I said I was worried that she would tell other students about this. She said she had an incentive not to tell, since to some extent I might be grading on the curve. I said with 500 students in the class, her inference wasn’t correct—she has an incentive to tell 5 friends and help them without appreciably affecting the grading scale in the course. BUT—she would have to swear them to silence, or tell them only right before class, otherwise they might talk to 5 of their friends, etc., and enough students might then get the question correct to wipe out the advantage arising from her little bit of advanced knowledge about the quiz.

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Can anyone see where he went wrong?

[FlyWf]

Terrible teaching, just answer the question and let her get that one right. She took the necessary steps to understand the concept and deserved her point, I don't understand why he would hem and haw.

[eviljeff]

when he told her it was on the quiz

[ImsaKidd]

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Terrible teaching, just answer the question and let her get that one right. She took the necessary steps to understand the concept and deserved her point, I don't understand why he would hem and haw.

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Thats not the idea, the prof made incorrect reasoning somewhere.

[ImsaKidd]

This site is really interesting, thanks for the link.

I'm not really well versed in Economics but I understand what he is explaining.

[ItalianFX]

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when he told her it was on the quiz

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Exactly. If he wouldn't have told her it was on the quiz, she wouldn't have thought to tell anyone. And if she would have, those other people probably wouldn't have repeated it.

I had a test today in Microeconomics and before the test I went to my professor and asked her a question. She answered it, and a similar question just happened to be on the test. I didn't repeat it because I had no idea that it would be on the test, and if I knew it was going to be on the test, I don't know what I would have done, but I don't talk to anyone in my class so I doubt I would have told anybody.

[dkgojackets]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
when he told her it was on the quiz

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Exactly. If he wouldn't have told her it was on the quiz, she wouldn't have thought to tell anyone. And if she would have, those other people probably wouldn't have repeated it.

I had a test today in Microeconomics and before the test I went to my professor and asked her a question. She answered it, and a similar question just happened to be on the test. I didn't repeat it because I had no idea that it would be on the test, and if I knew it was going to be on the test, I don't know what I would have done, but I don't talk to anyone in my class so I doubt I would have told anybody.

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Yeah, this seems pretty standard.

[Ganjasaurus Rex]

Damn, that guy has a pretty sweet CV.

[MichaelL]

Haha he's got a picture of himself at my Uni

[wstaffor]

As an Econ prof, he should have realized that as a rational decision maker, she would NOT have told anyone, even the 5 people. Because she knows that if she tells 5, and they tell 5, and they tell 5, etc, then everyone will know. Therefore, at any given decision point, the rational choice is to NOT tell. So she wouldn't.

Of course, that assumes she passed Game Theory.