Category Education
Free-riding economists, revisited
In a classic experimental economics paper, Marwell and Ames observed Economists Free Ride, Does Anyone Else?
How to manipulate student grades
There are times when a professor wishes to raise or lower his or her students' grades. Perhaps a directive has come down from on high: "Instructors need to focus on increasing student success rates." "The average grade in this class is above the departmental norm – grades must come down." Or a professor might wish to maximize teaching […]
Who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes?
In other universities the teacher is prohibited from receiving any honorary or fee from his pupils, and his salary constitutes the whole of the revenue which he derives from his office. His interest is, in this case, set as directly in opposition to his duty as it is possible to set it. It is the interest of […]
Is Ontario Breaking the “Golden Rule”?
Ontario’s government is now engaged in public sector restraint and reform tackling its doctors and teachers in an effort to wrestle down its 15 billion dollar deficit. Soon it will be turning its attention to universities. Indeed, work is already underway on an ambitious plan to reform the university sector which according to reports on […]
Boy versus Teacher: A Lesson in Mastery
"Read each sentence or poem. Mark an X on the word or words that need to be capitalized. Then write the sentence correctly on another sheet of paper." "Writing it again is a waste of time."
Why is Ontario’s Government Being So Mean to Its Teachers?
Being in Toronto for the Rimini Conference in Economics and Finance 2012 and standing in the shadow of Queen’s Park has led me to contemplate why the Ontario government is suddenly being so mean to its teachers. After years of Dalton McGuinty as the education premier with an expansion of education funding and programs, the […]
No, you may not speak to my class
Because I would be abusing my authority if I said "yes". So you shouldn't even ask. [Updated: see below] This post is about teaching economics, though it could be about teaching anything else. It's also about allocating scarce resources between competing ends, which is the subject matter of economics.
Coming Soon to a University Near You…H-Index Rankings
Most of us are familiar with the metric known as the h-Index. Developed by Jorge Hirsch, the h-index is a measure that says that if you have an index of h, you have published h papers each of which has been cited at least h times.
Compensating differentials, field of study and the Quebec student strike
Only something like 35% of Quebec students are on strike*, and in a column in today's La Presse, Yves Boivert notes that those on strike are overwhelmingly from the arts and social sciences faculties; those in natural sciences, engineering, medicine, etc have all stayed in class and their session is ending normally. His argument is […]
The impact of tax cuts on government revenues
An average person, asked to explain the impact of cutting taxes, might well reason: I have represented this argument in flow chart form to give it a spurious air of logical coherence. Yet any flow chart is only as good as the reasoning that underlies it. In this case, that reasoning is seriously incomplete.
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