A couple of pieces on Medicine and moral hazard

This is from today's Op-Ed page.  It is called How Medical Care Is Being Corrupted.  The issue is how doctors are compensated and if that impacts how they practice - prescribe medications, recommend treatments, etc.

This other one is about medical research, particularly the war on cancer.  It is called Grant System Leads Cancer Researchers to Play It Safe. It is quite intriguing and might give you an entirely different sense of what moral hazard means.

Excel Homework Due Dec 3 at 11 PM

This is the last Excel Homework.

This homework is on extensions of the basic Shapiro and Stiglitz model, with a particular focus on making the monitoring intensity a choice variable.

You should watch the video presentation of the basic model first.   This is a full lecture on the math of the model.  It takes about a half hour.

xlsx file

Please Read This Essay Before...

...
1) You write the blog post due 11/21 on personal reputations, and
2) Also before class on Thursday 11/20.

The essay has a bit of math that I hope is easy to follow and has quite a bit of discussion of reputational mechanisms as means of enforcing good behavior.  I think you'll like the discussion and I hope it makes sense to you.

The essay was revised last year.  It matched that class quite well.  I originally wrote it for an intermediate micro class I taught in spring 2011.  (Aren't you glad you didn't take 302 from me?) We've done a few things differently this time around but there is still enough there that should fit what we've done.

Another Grade Upload in Moodle Done This Morning

There were grades upload for the last four Excel Homeworks and the last four Blog Posts.  Note that the blog post columns are just for tracking that you did them.  There are no points being allotted.  Moodle requires me in making the columns to assign some points, so each blog post column has 1 point assigned, but you are not receiving those points.  The points you receive for blogging are given in a block.  One block was done at mid semester, which you've already received.  The next block will be done at the end of the term, before the final.

A little celebration today

I bought the cider and doughnuts, so we are on for today.  I hope there isn't any precipitation when heading to class.

For Practice - Midterm 2 from last year

I wouldn't look at this till you've done the Excel Homework on the Principal-Agent Model.  But then, this Exam should be intelligible to you.    Also note, question 2 from last year's Midterm 1 is fair game as well.

In case you are not confused enough about the difference between conflict and an argument...

...this is pretty funny and should be part of your cultural repertoire.