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Markets in everything, Freakonomics style
A student is selling his spot in Steve Levitt's Economics of Crime class.
The pointer is from Alec Brandon. And via Michelle, here is another installment in the Markets in Everything series. And here is yet another installment, I would call it obvious ("markets in food," can you believe that?) but apparently not to Professor Houston at Brown University.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on January 8, 2008 at 07:48 AM in Education | Permalink
Comments
Is he/she only selling the opportunity to take the class, not actually to receive a grade on a transcript?
I am under the impression that typically the person at the top of the waiting list gets in as soon as someone drops, not whoever the person who drops chooses as a replacement.
Posted by: Jake at Jan 8, 2008 10:28:49 AM
There is no evidence that a command economy beyond the family unit structure has ever been successful. Why would Professor Houston automatically assume just the opposite for the highly successful Mayans?
Posted by: happyjuggler0 at Jan 8, 2008 12:04:20 PM
He's a humanities professor, and is thus born knowing of the innate goodness of command economies.
Posted by: Petrarch at Jan 8, 2008 2:34:22 PM
Why would Professor Houston automatically assume just the opposite for the highly successful Mayans?
He's a humanities professor, and is thus born knowing of the innate goodness of command economies.
Or maybe he actually knows a lot about the Mayas. In other words, maybe he didn't "automatically assume" anything but based his opinion on actual evidence he has about Mayan civilization.
Nor, I might point out, did he say anything about "innate goodness." He was just describing how he thought the Mayan economy worked, not making value judgments.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Jan 8, 2008 4:16:53 PM
Jake, in computerized registration systems in use at the two universities I've attended there are no waiting lists. As soon as one person drops the first person to log on to the system and request the open slot gets it. My peers and I arranged many (uncompensated) swaps by synchronizing the drop/add process at odd times of day.
Posted by: Dylan at Jan 8, 2008 7:42:38 PM
The item about the student selling his spot in SL's class is very ironic, but in essence, isn't that what universities do but on a grander scale? Touche'
Posted by: enrique at Jan 8, 2008 9:56:45 PM
Thanks for the clarification, Dylan. That doesn't seem like a very good way to do it.
Posted by: Jake at Jan 8, 2008 10:41:54 PM
And another example of why people shouldn't make snarky comments about things they don't know too much about....
the Inkas, another highly successful civilisation, appear to have had an economy that was primarily based on regulated reciprocal exchange and a state-run command economy. Go figure.
Posted by: Martin Ranger at Jan 9, 2008 6:29:05 AM
Mr. Cowen -- do you follow virtual economies at all? Linden Labs has banned virtual banking in Second Life due to the prevalence of ponzi schemes. So right now there's a run on funds as customers try to get their money out before the ban takes effect.
http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/01/08/new-policy-regarding-in-world-banks/
Posted by: nate at Jan 9, 2008 8:31:44 AM
Markets in everything: saw this article, thought of your blog. Information Week reports that in a pilot project, people would dial the price they wanted to pay for electricity, and a control system would schedule their electricity use for times of day when it is cheaper. The consumers saved 10% on their bill; the company saves reducing peak load which drives capital expenditures. Article seems to be unaware of time of day pricing as used in some electric markets. Moral of story: people respond to incentives. Who knew?
Posted by: arbitraryaardvark at Jan 10, 2008 10:30:24 AM
