This is an Okay Read but the Picture Is Priceless.

Why We Can’t Finish Things | Vitae via kwout

A couple of pieces for class on 11/1 plus Moneyball

This first one is among my favorite essays and is a really great read.

The Streak of Streaks | by Stephen Jay Gould | The New York Review of Books via kwout

The second one is there so we don't have to talk about a person's politics, or the person's gender, or race, or national origin.

Why Tall People Make More Money - The Atlantic via kwout

And then there is the issue of whether the labor market knows what to do with this sort of information.

Amazon.com: Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (9780393324815): Michael Lewis: Books via kwout

Update on Review of Papers

I had some health issues yesterday and only started to look at the papers today. It has been going slowly.  I hope to have them all done by end of day on Tuesday.

Here is a little general reaction on everything I've read so far.  Jargon from the paper under review gets introduced without giving a definition of it in plain English.  I've already encourage one team to produce a glossary as a prior exercise to writing the paper.  Perhaps each team should do that.  Whether you include your glossary as an appendix or just do it for you as a first step in the writing, I leave to your judgment.

The other big deal issue is giving reasons why as you say what the author argues.  The reasons why are the heart of the paper.  Then you illustrate those with examples.

Some people are doing this a bit better than others.  Nobody I've read yet is doing it really well.  Part of the reason why my reviews are taking a while is that I have to determine what sort of feedback will get you to do this reasonably well in the second draft.

Party in Class Next Thursday

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Why Health Insurance Is Different From Car Insurance

Here's a little bit on the history of health insurance in the U.S.  Note that getting insurance through your employer means every employee is paying the same in premiums even if everyone is not equally likely to access the care that the insurance is meant to cover.  So the accident in history encouraged an approach that we'll call a pooling equilibrium.

Accidents Of History Created U.S. Health System : NPR via kwout

Excel Homework Due 11/2 at 11 PM

The homework is on bargaining.  Note that M&R have a discussion of bargaining in Chapter 5.  You should read that.  The model they go through has both the buyer and seller having two types.  In the Excel homework, the model has a continuum of types on each side of the bargain.  In that sense it is harder but also more elegant.  And, I believe, it should give you a better understanding about the relationship between the private information and the inefficiency  created.

There is a fiction in the model that helps to understand what is going on.  The fiction is that there is a third party - an arbitrator - who provides rules for how the bargaining will happen, when trade will occur, and at what price.  The fiction is necessary because the model is static.  Real world negotiations happen over time and to model that correctly one needs a dynamic model.  There are such models, but they are well beyond the scope of our class.  So we will keep the modeling relatively simple and wave our hands about what happens in real world bargaining.

There is a rather extensive discussion in this homework before you log in.  I encourage you to read that carefully and not gloss over it.  It is about how to bargain well and what happens in real-world procurement, which entails a good deal of such bargaining.  There are practical lessons here that you can carry over to your work life, even if you don't engage in procurement.

Not Course Related - My Prediction for Game 1 of the World Series

I will be asleep before the end of the fifth inning.  I wouldn't bet against that one.  As to who will win the game, it's an exciting matchup so let fate decide.