One More Reminder - Discussion Group

There are a couple of takers, so this is now on.  If you'd like to join the group, please let me know.

Bah, Humbug. Scrooge was an economist!

Taking a little break from the grading.  I thought you might be amused by this paper, which is based on the following premise.  If you exchange real gifts with a distant cousin over the holidays, and the gifts have the same cash value, and each cousin doesn't really know what the other wants, wouldn't each of you be better off were there no gift exchange whatsoever?

The deadweight loss of Christmas. - christmas.pdf via kwout

A little humor and....

.... if you've never seen it before an essential part of anyone's education about American culture.

Perhaps something for next semester - A discussion group

Announcement from last year

Inside Higher Ed piece

If you are interested please either say so as a comment to this post or send me an email.

A little humor for you on the Triangle Principal-Agent model

This can be found under the Laws of Applied Terror.  I especially like the Corollary.

Murphy Laws Site - Teaching Laws via kwout

This Wednesday - A Celebration

I will bring donuts and cider.  We'll take 5 minutes or so to enjoy that we've made it this far into the semester.

Learning Rubrics

Value rubrics from the AACU

We will use this for a different purpose than it was originally intended.  (The original purpose is to provide guidelines for instructors in evaluating student work, so that there are common rubrics for making such an evaluation for all all classes to be used in addition to course specific ways of evaluating student work.)  Here we will use the rubrics as part of an exercise in metacognition.  Focus on the Creative Thinking rubrics (page3) and the Critical Thinking Rubrics (pages 4 and 5).

Survey

Nobel Prize - Angus Deaton

The Economics Nobel Committee made a good and sound choice for this year's prize.  If you went to graduate school in Economics, you would study his work in some depth, such as this text co-authored with Muelbauer.

The Prize in Economic Sciences 2015 - Press Release via kwout

Two pieces worth reading

This first one is a book review written by Cass Sunstein of a new book by Akerlof and Schiller called Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception.

The other one is an Op-Ed in the NY Times written by Sherry Turkle called Stop Googling.  Let's Talk.  It is about the harmful effects in terms of developing empathy and good listening skills from always having your head on your phone or computer screen.

It might be interesting to put these two pieces together.  At the end of the first piece, Sunstein mentions a kind of individual called a sophisticate who is immune from phishing attempts because the person knows how to steer clear of them and devotes considerable attention to that purpose.  The good listening skills that Turkle talks about may be at the heart of what is necessary to become a sophisticate.

Random Seat Assignment or an Honor Code?

This piece is a fun read and touches on many course themes.  Have any of you experienced random seat assignment in a course?

To Stop Exam Cheats, Economists Say, Try Assigning Seats - The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout

Reminder - Al Roth Talk

I mentioned this in class yesterday.  If you are interested in attending the talk, you can either register at the link or please send me an email about attending.  They do want to have a count of who will show up.

The U of I makes the grade

The Department of Education released a new Web site giving various pieces of information about college performance.  Illinois does pretty well there.  See below.

Source

Office 365 Freely Available

For those who don't have Excel, or even those who simply have an older version of Office, you can get Office 365.  See below.

Microsoft Office 365 for Urbana Students, Faculty and Staff, Personal Use - Access Information Offer | University of Illinois WebStore via kwout