I do an exercise called "The Microeconomics of Single's Bars" and ask students to visit a local meat market and identify and give examples of which forms of "efficiency" (technological, economic, productive, consumer, exchange and allocative) are being manifested (with concrete examples); further I ask them to identify aspects of the typical model of Homo Oeconomicus are being manifested (give concrete examples); to illustrate consumer optimality in a trade-off between beer and wine with given income and an assumed "indifference map" with given prices of beer and wine at the meat market; what is the "dance of maximization and optimization" often evident at local singles' bars? What is commodification and how is it manifested at the local singles' bar and with what consequences? What are examples of positive and negative externalities not typically included/accounted for in the prices paid at the singles bar? How could they be accounted/paid for in the prices charged? who would do the assessments for positive and negative externalities? So for example, I get stuff like: "The guy obviously wants to pop some woman in the sack with minimum time expenditure (minimizing input per unit of output or maximizing output per unit of time expenditure or "technological efficiency" and at minimum cost--"economic efficiency" or minimum total cost per dollar value or benefit value of output)" "The woman obviously is loooking for "the ring" if she is going to come across or technological efficiency--maximizing return or output per unit of input; or she is looking to put in minimum effort (physical and time) to find a marriageable mate that can pay the bills or minimizing inpout per unit of ouput." This often comes from women as well as men interestingly. I get some very outrageous stuff. I wanted to put this exercise in Dave Colander's Economics Third Edition but he thought it might kill the book in even less time than some of his other included stuff would. James Craven Clark College, 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. Vancouver, WA. 98663 (360) 992-2283; Fax: (360) 992-2863 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.home.earthlink.net/~blkfoot5 *My Employer Has No Association With My Private/Protected Opinion* -----Original Message----- From: Rod Hay [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 1999 11:58 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:10496] Re: Re: request on teaching I find it hard enough getting students to understand the concepts in a first year principles course. Economic thinking is counter intuitive for most first year students. To other criticise of the concepts howerer desirable, seems only to confuse them. I had thought of just teaching an alternative course, but then they would suffer by not being prepared for courses at a more advance level. The critical courses seem more effective at a third year level, when they have a good grasp of neoclassical thinking. Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://members.tripod.com/rodhay/batochebooks.html http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
