First Day Of Classes
Well, today was the first day of classes. I had two: Data (aka Statistics) and Economic Analysis. Today's Data lecture was designed to familiarize people with probability. The Econ lecture was part lecture, part class exercise.
The Econ professor took 12 students (myself included) and gave them each one ticket to a baseball game. Each ticket was valued at $55. We were instructed to sell the tickets to the buyers - another group of 12 students. Before we started selling, someone in the group had the idea of setting a maximum and minimum price that all of us sellers agreed to adhere to no matter what. Our max was $400. Our min was $200. What we didn't know was that the buyers were given an amount that they were willing to pay and that they couldn't exceed that amount. Those amounts ranged from $25 to $50, with most buyers at $30. Obviously, when the buyers and sellers got together to begin the negotiations, the gap was quite wide. When a buyer who could only pay $25 for a ticket informed me that he had a max and showed me the slip of paper verifying this, I decided to search for someone who was able to pay more. I found someone with a maximum of $40 and sold my ticket to her. The thing was, sellers were told that they could not get a refund for the tickets, nor would they be able to use them. If we didn't sell our tickets, we would be out $55. Some of the sellers didn't end up selling their tickets as the buyers who were left could only spend $30 or less. I don't understand why some of the sellers decided to lose the entire $55 instead of just $25. It probably had something to do with the fact that this was simply an exercise and not real life. In the real world, we probably would have taken $1 if it was all we could get.
And this, ladies and gents, was our simple introduction to supply and demand. We graphed the demand curve and the supply curve and then plotted the actual results. This enabled us to see the consumer surplus and producer surplus. I really enjoyed this class.
Monday's and Wednesday's are short days for the folks in my cohort: We start at 1 p.m. and end at 4 p.m. with one 20 minute break in-between. Tuesday's and Thursday's are going to be more challenging, with classes beginning at 8:15 and ending at 2:20.
Tomorrow: Finance, Strategic Environment of Management, and Accounting.
The Econ professor took 12 students (myself included) and gave them each one ticket to a baseball game. Each ticket was valued at $55. We were instructed to sell the tickets to the buyers - another group of 12 students. Before we started selling, someone in the group had the idea of setting a maximum and minimum price that all of us sellers agreed to adhere to no matter what. Our max was $400. Our min was $200. What we didn't know was that the buyers were given an amount that they were willing to pay and that they couldn't exceed that amount. Those amounts ranged from $25 to $50, with most buyers at $30. Obviously, when the buyers and sellers got together to begin the negotiations, the gap was quite wide. When a buyer who could only pay $25 for a ticket informed me that he had a max and showed me the slip of paper verifying this, I decided to search for someone who was able to pay more. I found someone with a maximum of $40 and sold my ticket to her. The thing was, sellers were told that they could not get a refund for the tickets, nor would they be able to use them. If we didn't sell our tickets, we would be out $55. Some of the sellers didn't end up selling their tickets as the buyers who were left could only spend $30 or less. I don't understand why some of the sellers decided to lose the entire $55 instead of just $25. It probably had something to do with the fact that this was simply an exercise and not real life. In the real world, we probably would have taken $1 if it was all we could get.
And this, ladies and gents, was our simple introduction to supply and demand. We graphed the demand curve and the supply curve and then plotted the actual results. This enabled us to see the consumer surplus and producer surplus. I really enjoyed this class.
Monday's and Wednesday's are short days for the folks in my cohort: We start at 1 p.m. and end at 4 p.m. with one 20 minute break in-between. Tuesday's and Thursday's are going to be more challenging, with classes beginning at 8:15 and ending at 2:20.
Tomorrow: Finance, Strategic Environment of Management, and Accounting.
posted by Jerry Blank at 1:53 PM
1 Comments:
What you have there is a great example of why Market Research is important. We're the people who find out what's written on everyone's slips of paper.
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