EclectEcon

Late Adds

I just received an e-mail note from a student who was just given some sort of administrative permission to add my intro course now, four weeks into the 13-week term. What are the odds this student will pass?

Global Cooling and Its Frustrations

Scott Sumner reports that many climatologists are now predicting the earth will cool for the next two decades before it begins to warm (go to the end of this posting):

I love hot weather.  But now climate experts are suggesting that there may be one or two decades of cold weather before the heat arrives.  Great, so I get to suffer the adverse economic consequences of futilely trying to stave off global warming, only to drop dead right before it warms up.  And I live in Boston.

Just shoot me.

"Plugged in, not charging"

Note to self: When you discover this message on your laptop, take the battery out and put it back in.

Doing so has started the charging process both times I have tried it. I forgot that was what I did the first time, and using Google to search for a solution led to lots of useless suggestions.

Ease of Use: Why Some Products Succeed.

This is SO Right! 

From the Business Pundit, H/t Craig Newmark:

Damned Day Job Interferes with Watching Baseball

I teach this evening from 5:30 - 6:30 and then have an hour's drive to get home. I'll be lucky if I get home before the last couple of innings of the Tigers - Twins one-game playoff this evening, much less have an opportunity to down a sausage or two and some orange juice before the game ends. Over the regular season, the Twins had a higher SLG and a massively higher OBP than the Tigers, but the Tigers had a lower ERA. It could be close, but after seeing the Tigers fall apart and the Twins play so well over the past few weeks, I will not be surprised if the Twins win big.

Why Haven't We Heard More about This? Why Aren't More People Upset?

Imagine the outcry if the roles were reversed. From the National Post: [h/t AP]

A Palestinian children's program is using a bear puppet that talks about "slaughtering" Jews...

The character on Hamas TV is the latest in a series of puppets and cartoons used by the weekly show Tomorrow's Pioneers to promote anti-Semitism and incite violence, said media watch director Itamar Marcus.

The show, which started in 2007, became popular in the Arab world when it began to feature a Mickey Mouse-type character, he said.

"This Mickey Mouse character was teaching killing and murder and slaughter and destruction of Jews. In fact, he was also teaching conquest of the West as well," Mr. Marcus said.

When media watch, a pro-Israeli group that monitors Palestinian media, highlighted the story the subsequent international attention led to the character being killed off.

"They had the Mickey Mouse character killed on TV. They had an Israeli kill him and he became a Shahid [martyr]," Mr. Marcus said.

He said since then there have been three more characters, Nahul the Bee (who also became a martyr) and a bunny character called Assud, who in the show was killed during the Gaza war.

"Every time Israel was responsible," he said.

The latest character is a giant bear, Nassur.

Mr. Marcus said during the show, which also features a real presenter called Saraa, the bear uses two different words for "slaughter" to describe how to rid Israel of Jews.

During the show a child also phones in and talks about wanting to kill Jews for the death of his father.

The program was shown on Al-Aqsa TV, more commonly called Hamas TV, last week.

"All the adult messages of 'It's good to die for Allah; it's good to fight the West; we are going to conquer the West; it's important to kill the Jews,' all these adult messages that often come through religious leaders and political leaders, the kids are getting through these cartoon and gigantic puppet characters," Mr. Marcus said.

An Upward-Sloping Demand Curve?distinguishing between a change in demand and a change in quantity demanded

The Law of Demand says that as the price of something increases, the quantity demanded of it will decline, ceteris paribus. But every year when I teach this concept, numerous exceptions are proposed. One of the latest examples is this  story about an after-school programme (h/t Kathleen):

She and another mom sent out a survey to parents and started programming that fall. At first, it didn't catch on, which she blames on the low $5 per course fee – parents thought low price equalled poor quality. "We moved to $8, and it made a complete difference," she said...

They raised the price, and as a result the quantity demanded increased. How could that happen if the law of demand is correct?

The answer lies in that little phrase, ceteris paribus, meaning everything else is held constant. In this case, everything else is not being held constant: the consumers' perceptions of the quality of the product changed when the price changed, thus shifting the demand curve outward. It was an increase in demand, not an increase in the quantity demanded (an important distinction in economics).

There are other examples of precisely the same phenomenon in many textbooks:

• a discount store raising the price and selling more of its diamond rings since customers didn't believe they were real at the initial low price
• jewelry producers in the US southwest finding that they sold more at higher prices, again because the lower prices implied poor quality to customers.
• a lard producer rebranding and increasing the price of its lard with the result that consumers now perceive it to be of higher quality.

In each of these and similar instances, customers are judging quality by price; a high price implies high quality. In these instances, the demand curve shifts. If the customers had maintained constant perceptions of quality, then the demand curve would not have shifted and a higher price would have led to a reduction in the quantity demanded.

My Use of the iPhone in the Classroom

I used the clock feature because I had forgotten to bring a wristwatch and the clock on the wall wasn't working.

I was not checking the scores and plays of a baseball game via Sportacular.

Honest. I wasn't.

It Happened Again: Bogus Excuses Outed on Facebook

This morning I received a very polite e-mail from a student explaining that he would have to miss my class this afternoon because he has to be in Toronto for an important meeting at 4pm.

Then on Facebook I see that he's going to a bachelor party.

Update: His response on Facebook, when asked about it:

...[I]ts all about diminishing marginal returns. Put your class on the X axis, and Toronto party on the Y axis. Both are considered good goods.Lets also assume that "[the student]" likes a diverse basket of goods, and that one unit of Palmer's class is equal to the cost of one unit of bachelor party (for simplicity). Being a rational maximizer, I will want to maximize my utility, within my budget constraints. The next unit of Toronto party gives me more marginal utility than the next Palmer's class. So as such, rationally I will choose to go to Toronto.

Does he really think my classes generate the same marginal utility per unit as bachelor parties? I'm not sure I can accept that as a simplifying assumption. And of course the rational maximizing equilibrium should be to equate MU/hour or MU/penny, whichever is the relevant constraint.

Headmask Bleg: Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra

For reasons only Scoop will understand, I would very much like to find a head mask of one of the members of the Rat Pack, preferably Dean Martin. I will gladly pay the postage both ways if you're willing to lend me one, or I will be very grateful if you can point me to where I might buy one.