Excel Tutorial - Due Wed 9/3 at 11 PM

This is the first homework, though it really is a preparation for the future Excel homework that you will do.  This one is meant to teach you how to go about doing them, even if you are not very comfortable with Excel.

Go to this link.  Then click the download button the is in the bar above the preview pane.  Save the file somewhere on your computer where you can find it later.

If you have questions about the content of this homework, please post those as a comment to those post.  I will try to respond within 24 hours.  Other students in the class should also feel free to respond.

Note that you get 10 points for completing the homework AND SUBMITTING your key to the Web form that is linked in the homework.

Start of Semester Survey

Please complete this by Wednesday evening.  I will compile results and present in class on Thursday.

Economics of Organizations - Start of Semester Survey via kwout

Moral Hazard and the S&L Crisis

While we will consider moral hazard even in the first class session, we will take a deeper look at it during the second half of the course.  Your textbook has a very nice example of the moral hazard entailed in making bank loans when the deposits are covered by Deposit Insurance provided by the Federal Government.  The piece linked below, illustrates the practical reality of the situation.

Lessons Not Learned - NYTimes.com via kwout

Why this tag?

Sometimes we won't cover everything that I've prepared for a particular session and other times things will occur to me that we should have covered during class or even after class.  We might then bring some of that to the next class and/or I might post about it here under this tag.

Useful for first class - Do we know the best way to learn?

The following excerpt and link back to the original piece offers some food for thought.  Is the technique we use to promote learning really the best?  or not?  A related question, if the answer is that it is not the best technique, is why does the less good method persist?  Because an economics approach typically focuses on optimizing behavior and rationality of the participants, the only way that economics can explain is is for people's beliefs to be errant.  You might then ask yourself whether there are other sensible non-economics explanations for why such behavior persists.

Confuse Students to Help Them Learn - Teaching - The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout