Posts filed under ‘Teaching’
Interview with Oliver Williamson
| Peter Klein |
Here is Oliver Williamson, interviewed on video by Ken Train (requires RealPlayer).
Others in the series include Nobel Laureates George Akerlof and Dan McFadden as well as David Card, Hal Varian, and Janet Yellen. (Thanks to Michael Greinecker for the tip.)
Should Business Schools Be Like Medical Schools?
| Peter Klein |
Fabio Rojas at orgtheory.net suggests that business schools require more field work. You wouldn’t trust a doctor who graduated from medical school without working on a real patient, so why hire an MBA student who hasn’t performed any “rotations,” in companies or in the business school itself?
Of course, as Fabio acknowledges, this model doesn’t work if business education is primarily a signal, a la Spence. On the other hand, gradute school seems a highly costly and inefficient signaling mechanism — why not just give prospective employees an IQ test? Or, if social networking is important, put students in one-year MBA programs or even shorter mini-programs with tough admission requirements and a lot of social events with alumni and local executives. A much cheaper signaling + networking mechanism, presumably. Any thoughts?
Newsflash: University Presidents Make Good Money
| Peter Klein |
The Chronicle of Higher Education has released its annual executive compensation report. Most of the contents are behind a subscription firewall. Fortunately, Richard Vedder has summarized the key results. Among them:
The findings continue trends in the last few years: compensation is up, and increased use of non-traditional forms of pay are evident — performance pay, deferred compensation, and other perks. The prosperity of higher ed is continuing to show up in the pay of the leaders of our institutions.
Moreover, two other trends appear to be continuing:
1. Salaries in research universities are rising much faster than in liberal arts colleges or schools with modest graduate work.
2. Presidential salaries are growing faster than those of mainline employees, including faculty, at least at the more prestigious institutions, not to mention the employment income of ordinary Americans.
Vedder follows with some pointed questions. (more…)
Those Nutty Professors
| Peter Klein |
Anthony Grafton reviews William Clark’s Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University (University of Chicago Press, 2006) for The New Yorker. Clark focuses on Weber’s notion of charismatic authority and argues that the critical element in the development of the professorial role was not the lecture, but the “disputation,” or debate, a form of which survives today as the oral thesis defense. Peter Abelard was apparently a master of the disputation. Writes Grafton:
His triumphs in these “combats” made him, arguably, the first glamorous Parisian intellectual. A female disciple, Héloïse, wrote to him, “Every wife, every young girl desired you in absence and was on fire in your presence.” Their story has become a legend because of what followed: Héloïse, unwed, had a child by Abelard, her kin castrated him in revenge, and they both lived out their lives, for the most part, in cloisters. But even after Abelard’s writings were condemned and burned, pupils came from across Europe hoping to study with him. He had the enduring magnetism of the hotshot who can outargue anyone in the room.
I don’t wish Abelard’s fate, but it would be nice to have that kind of enduring magnetism. Anyway, the book sounds like a good read. (HT: Jackson Library Blog)
Specialized Wikis for Sharing Class Notes
| Peter Klein |
Students wishing to share class notes can try two new wiki-like services, NoteMesh and stud.icio.us. EdTechPost offers some commentary.
More than ever, professors need to add a disclaimer to their syllabi: “I am not responsible for information on class notes wikis, MySpace, Facebook, or any other websites. To be honest, I’m not even sure what those things are.”
If such tools had been available when I was a student, just think where I could be today!
Vanderbilt PhD Program in Law and Economics
| Peter Klein |
Vanderbilt University is the only US institution (as far as I know) offering a PhD degree in Law and Economics. The program now has a web page describing the faculty, curriculum, seminar series (Henry Manne is on the Fall slate), and other practicalities. (Via Josh Wright.)
Berkeley Puts Class Lectures on Google Video
| Peter Klein |
My alma mater UC Berkeley has become the first university to give away its class lectures for free, via Google Video. “Google Video presents us with a wonderful opportunity to share UC Berkeley’s amazing faculty with a global community of lifelong learners,” says vice provost Christina Maslach. “We see this endeavor as one part of our expanding digital bridge that is directly connecting the public we serve with the intellectual riches of the campus.” (Via Paul Reist.)
Celebrating the Entrepreneur in Film
| Peter Klein |
Like other cutting-edge, deeply committed educational professionals, I use film clips in class wherever possible. When teaching entrepreneurship I show the courtroom scene at the end of Francis Ford Coppola’s fine 1985 film Tucker: The Man and His Dream. Jeff Bridges (as Preston Tucker) delivers a magnificent speech on the entrepreneur’s right to dream, to experiment, to take chances, and to be wrong. The scene moves me to tears. (Then again, so does the segment on the for-profit lifeguard in John Stossel’s “Greed” special.) In any case, Tucker, along with the 1951 Alec Guinness flick The Man in the White Suit, have been the only entrepreneurship films in my collection.
Now from Stephen Carson I learn of another film celebrating the entrepreneur: Boom Town (1940):
A marvelous and fun ode to entrepreneurship starring Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy as two wildcatters that take extreme risks hunting for oil in 1918 Texas. The roles of risk, capital and entrepreneurial insight are all portrayed wonderfully. The cherry on top is when competitors invoke the Sherman Antitrust Act to go after a company they can’t defeat fair and square in the marketplace (imagine that!)
The courtroom speech at the end includes an argument indicating how private owners of capital are motivated to wisely manage natural resources(!) and this wonderful tribute to entrepreneurs: “McMasters is a wildcatter. If it wasn’t for automobiles he’d be driving a covered wagon. It’s always been his breed that has opened up the country and made it what it is. So now, I’m wondering… Is it getting to be out of line in these Unites States for a man like him to make a million dollars with his brains and with his hands? Because if that’s true, then we’d better rewrite this land-of-opportunity stuff.” Did Hollywood really make this film? Wow!
It’s moving to the top of my Netflix queue.
MBA Students and Math
| Peter Klein |
My friend and former colleague Dwight Lee, along with Richard McKenzie, has produced a new textbook, Microeconomics for MBAs: The Economic Way of Thinking for Managers (Cambridge University Press, 2006). Lee and McKenzie have written more books than I’ve read (or colored) and, like all their books, Microeconomics for Managers is a delight — lively and engaging while also systematic, learned, and useful. I’ve been using Brickley, Smith, and Zimmerman’s Managerial Economics and Organizational Architecture for several years and have been quite satisfied, but am considering switching to McKenzie and Lee.
I noticed this plug in the dust-jacket blurb: “This is the first textbook in microeconomics written exclusively for MBA students. McKenzie/Lee minimizes attention to mathematics and maximizes attention to intuitive economic thinking.” I’ve taught undergraduates, MBAs, and PhD students, and haven’t noticed MBA students being more troubled by math than anyone else. Clearly many managerial economics texts, at any level, overemphasize technique over intuition and application. But many MBAs — especially those with an engineering background, which seems to be an increasing number — may actually prefer more math to less. Just a thought.
27 September 2006 at 11:17 am Peter G. Klein Leave a comment
Demise of the Public Intellectual
| Peter Klein |
Mark Oppenheimer bemoans the demise of “public intellectuals,” scholars who write for the general reader or for academic researchers in other specialty areas. These intellectuals — people who write for periodicals like The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, Dissent, Partisan Review, Commentary, The New Criterion, and First Things — are still around, but few in academia are aware of them. Among Oppenheimer’s suggestions:
I have long believed that admissions committees at graduate schools should work very differently. Instead of asking for letters of recommendation from undergraduate thesis advisers, admissions committees should try to figure out if an applicant is an intellectual. They should ask: “What do you read outside your proposed field of study? What are your favorite books? Where would you most like to travel, and why? What periodicals do you read?” If a student has no aspirations to travel, doesn’t seem to read much except within her undergraduate major, and shows no interest in academic debates — well, that’s a bad candidate for academe.
Of course, in today’s climate of increasing hyper-specialization, such students are probably at a competitive disadvantage for completing the PhD, finding a job, getting tenure, etc. (Thanks to Teppo for the pointer to Oppenheimer.)
Should Universities Do Research?
| Peter Klein |
It is usually taken for granted that scientific research is a public good, is undersupplied by the market, and must therefore be provided by government. I think the argument for public funding is actually much weaker than is typically assumed. (More on that in a subsequent post.) Regardless of the funding source, however, what is the optimal delivery vehicle? Should universities be the main centers of scientific research?
For over two-thirds of the 370 year history of Harvard University, that institution was considered to be predominantly an undergraduate teaching institution. Only at the end of the 19th century did the German research university model find its way to the U.S., first at Johns Hopkins University, and then rapidly at other schools throughout the land.
There are other places at which research is performed, and the relative importance of these other research venues is substantial. . . . Yet universities have been considered the dominant provider of basic research — discovering new insights into the human condition and physical phenomena. In 2003, about 55 percent of basic research was university conducted.
The great advantage of university funded basic research is that there are sometimes economies of scale and cross-fertilization of ideas by having research conducted in a learning community where students mingle with faculty. The students transition to becoming mature researchers by assisting the senior researchers while studying. Yet there are other research models that work well — private firm research centers, government research labs, and in the social sciences, think tanks. More research is needed into the relative costs and benefits of these alternative forms of research delivery.
This is from Richard Vedder, whose blog offers excellent, provocative commentary on the problems facing contemporary higher education.
More on Elite Universities
| Peter Klein |
We reported previously on Kim, Morse, and Zingales’s paper “Are Elite Universities Losing Their Competitive Edge?” The paper documents a sharp reduction in the marginal benefits to faculty of being affiliated with top research universities. Monday’s W$J has some anecdotal evidence on the value of elite universities to their students. It turns out that most CEOs of major US companies did not attend Ivy League schools, but rather their local state university or a smaller, less-known college. Wal-Mart’s H. Lee Scott went to Pittsburg State University in Kansas, Intel’s Paul Otellini to the University of San Francisco, Costco’s James Sinegal to San Diego City College, and Accenture’s Bill Green to Dean College in Massachusetts. Warren Buffet attended the University of Nebraska. And we all know about Bill Gates.
Commentator Richard Tedlow notes that “A lot of people who earn degrees from tier-one universities and business schools aren’t willing to start at the bottom of a huge company,” working their way up and learning important lessons along the way. Says Proctor and Gamble’s A. G. Lafley, who went to Hamilton College, “I learned to think, to communicate, to lead, to get things done.” For this, “Any college will do.”
Swedish Economists
| Peter Klein |
When Sweden was hit by a deep economic crisis in the fall of 1992 and was forced to abandon the pegged exchange rate, the government appointed a commission of primarily university economists under the chairmanship of Assar Lindbeck, the most well-known economist in the country at the time. The commission was assigned to present an analysis of the problems facing Sweden. Appearing in March 1993, the report had a major impact in the media and in public debate. Several of its 113 proposals eventually served as a source of inspiration for political action.
This event illustrates the strong position of the economics profession in Swedish society -— no historians, philosophers, management consultants or former political leaders were considered for this task, as may have been the case in other countries. Economists play a prominent role in public debate in Sweden, many appear on radio and television, write for the daily press, magazines and books, and serve as experts on government inquiries and commissions. In Sweden, economists probably have more influence than any other category of social scientists.
This is from “Knut Wicksell, Gustav Cassel, Eli Heckscher, Bertil Ohlin and Gunnar Myrdal on the Role of the Economist in Public Debate” by Benny Carlson and Lars Jonung in the September 2006 issue of EconJournalWatch. Can any of our Nordic readers explain why Swedish economists have so much influence? (And if so, why the Swedish economy isn’t in better shape?)
N.B.: Also recommended, from the same issue of EconJournalWatch, is the exchange between Robert Lawson and critics on the use of the Gwartney et al. Economic Freedom Index.
Majoring in IBM
| Peter Klein |
Allowing students to write their own textbooks is controversial enough. What if IBM wrote them?
When graduate students at North Carolina State University took their seats on the first day of a class called Services Management, the kickoff lecture wasn’t delivered by a professor. Instead, it was given by a manager from International Business Machines Corp.
The company, in fact, helped develop the curriculum and awarded grants to the school with the expectation that the course would be taught — all with the aim of producing graduates better prepared to work for IBM.
This is from a report in today’s W$J on a growing trend toward business-school courses, and even entire curricula, designed for particular firms. (Disclaimer: I am affiliated with this.)
12 September 2006 at 12:20 pm Peter G. Klein Leave a comment
Quote of the Day
| Peter Klein |
As a regular feature at O&M we will begin sharing our favorite quotations, particularly on days when we have nothing original to say. Today, as a professional educator and amateur cynic, I offer this classic passage from H.L Mencken, describing the condition of American universities, circa 1928:
[T]he great majority of American colleges are so incompetent and vicious that, in any really civilized country, they would be closed by the police. . . . In the typical American state they are staffed by quacks and hag-ridden by fanatics. Everywhere they tend to become, not centers of enlightenment, but simply reservoirs of idiocy. Not one professional pedagogue out of twenty is a man of any genuine intelligence. The profession mainly attracts, not young men of quick minds and force of character, but flabby, feeble fellows who yearn for easy jobs. The childish mumbo-jumbo that passes for technique among them scarcely goes beyond the capacities of a moron. To take a Ph.D. in education, at most American seminaries, is an enterprise that requires no more real acumen or information than taking a degree in window dressing. . . . Their programs of study sound like the fantastic inventions of comedians gone insane. — H.L. Mencken, “The War Upon Intelligence,” Baltimore Evening Sun, December 31, 1928.
I leave it to the reader to assess how much things have changed.
Against Freakonomics
| Peter Klein |
We’ve discussed the Freakonomics phenomenon on these pages, but said little about the substance of Levitt and Dubner’s famous book. (Nicolai offered some brief remarks here — scroll down to the 15 August entry — in the dark days before Organizations and Markets.)
Several new critiques are floating around. Gene Epstein’s book Econospinning: How to Read Between the Lines When the Media Manipulate the Numbers challenges the chapters on real-estate agent services and the abortion-crime link. And from Division of Labour I learn that Ariel Rubinstein reviewed the book, quite harshly, for Haaretz. Rubenstein thinks the book is clever and entertaining, but not really economics. He also takes Levitt and Dubner to task for playing fast and loose with the facts. (more…)
Wikis Are Great, But. . . .
| Peter Klein |
Like Mike Giberson, I’m high on wikis. Of course, as with any open-source product wikis have both strengths and weaknesses compared with conventional, more hierarchical production methods. For many applications, though, the wiki model seems to work remarkably well.
But should students write their own textbooks? My former colleague Rick Watson thinks so. Here is the website of his Global Text Project, an attempt to create free, open-source textbooks for students in the developing world. Great tagline: Engaging many for the benefit of many more. (You expect clever verbiage from a guy who came up with the acronym CISL — go on, say it out loud — for his center.) Here is the projects’s blog. Here is a press release. (Via Dorai Thodla)
Scarcity without Prices
| Richard Langlois |
Yesterday’s New York Times carried an op-ed by Stephen L. Sass, a professor of materials science at Cornell. Writing in the context of high oil prices, Sass makes the point that scarcity of materials has long driven humans to find and make use of alternative materials. He argues that a scarcity of tin led denizens of the Bronze Age to figure out how to smelt iron, just as a scarcity of charcoal impelled the British to figure out how to use coal to make steel. I read the piece eagerly, thinking I might use it in my upcoming introductory economics course — until I got to the last paragraph. Here Sass draws the implication that we need a Manhattan Project to develop alternatives to oil. (more…)
Higher-Education Entrepreneurship
| Peter Klein |
Richard Vedder explains the latest developments. (Also check out his Center for College Affordability and Productivity and his new book, Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much.)
It Was Only a Matter of Time
| Peter Klein |
We professors know that students, not faculty, hold the real power at universities. (They get ratemyprofessors.com; we get the rather feeble, though cathartic, Rate Your Students.) So this was only a matter of time.
Organizations and Markets 
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