Post 11 Reflection

In this class, I learned the partial equilibrium and the general equilibrium which I never heard from any other economics classes before. The partial equilibrium efficiency concept is social surplus. An efficient allocation maximizes the social surplus. In occurs where marginal benefit equals marginal costs. This concept only occurred once in my undergraduate study time. At that time, I only know the most efficient allocation of resources occurs in which marginal benefit equals marginal cost. I did not really understand concept and graph behinds the definition. The general equilibrium efficiency concept is Pareto Optimality. An allocation is Pareto Optimal if you can’t make somebody better off without somebody else worse. Originally, I did not notice how important this concept was in making real world decision until another accounting graduate level course also discussed this topic. We need to learn how to calculate the Pareto Optimal combination by using the formulae, which is much more difficult than just simply understand the concept in this class. At least, I really appreciate this course discussed Pareto optimal concept first so that I have a better understanding in the other class even though I am still struggling with calculations.

In addition, triangle principal-agent model is also a very interesting topic which open up my point of view of the agency problem. Originally, I am only aware of a simple principal-agent model problem which causes moral hazard and adverse selection problems. Actually, in the real world, there are many cases agent would work for two principals who have contradicted interests. Moreover, single loop learning and double loop learning help me better understand how two different types of organization conflicts occur. I believe that traditional companies or industries would be more likely model 1 type while modern companies especially high-tech companies would be more toward to model 2 type organizations since model 2 boss would encourage employees to communicate their opinions.

I think this pedagogic approach could work better if Professor Arvan could provide more topics, bullet points and examples on power points to present in class, since most time the whole class session acts like a casual live talk, we might overlook some important ideas. For blog posts, I would always start with a reading instruction which is very clear and helpful to initiate the brainstorming process. If the key terms are new to me, I would google those important terms first, or just look at other students’ blog posts to help me understand the topic. And then I would start to think about the examples and write down the thesis statements for body paragraphs. In the end, I would use grammar check websites to proofread the whole work. Generally, it takes me about one and a half hour to complete weekly post. For excel homework, I have to say sometimes it is simple that only took me less than an hour to complete. Sometimes it is extremely challenging, and it probably takes me couple days to think about it. I have to google the terms first, read books, and even ask friends. If I really could not figure out by above methods, I would ask Professor Arvan as my final solution. Even though I complete the excel homework, some of those work I still do not understand thoroughly.

Finally, I would like to see more group discussion in class, not a just student to Professor format. I think this would help get close to the other classmates and learn ideas and thoughts from each other. Probably, group debate would be an interesting idea to promote discussion.