Ronald Coase Econ 490 fall 2017

My overall impression for the course is quite positive. Though this course is designed for undergraduate students, I still enjoy the class a lot. There are three parts that I want to talk about: assignments, class contents, and interactions. Firstly, assignments of this class are more than I expected, which is still fine for me. Blog posts every week are the most beneficial assignment in my opinion, which help me to digest what I learned from the class. Though writing blog is time consuming, since I have to think through the contents what I am going to discuss and which parts I want to focus on, I believe that is a good way for students to connect the new class contents to their old knowledge. Another gain for me is that I get a lot more chance to write essays and have feedback from Professor, which is a precious opportunity that I wouldn’t have from most graduate-degree courses. About the Excel homework, the difficulty is quite reasonable for me. Detailed instructions are provide...

Most of time, the tension between the agent and principal results from goal incongruence. The same reason causes problems in a triangle like principal-agent situation. Take my work experience two years ago in Colorado as an example, I was a crew leader who had to satisfy both my supervisors and my crew members. As I mentioned in the previous post, I attended the summer work and travel program and worked in a housekeeping department for three months. My job was to lead crew members to finish tasks that supervisors assigned. In that situation, my supervisors can be considered as the principal 1, and my crew members are considered as the principal 2. The principal 1’s goal is to finish cleaning cabins or lodge rooms as more as possible in the shortest time, and I am the agent who is supposed to help them finishing the goal. The principal 2’s goal is quite opposite to the principal 1’s goal, since most of housekeepers are international students who joined the program for fun and they ...