The Undercover Economist highlights the importance of price as rationing mechanism, especially in times of shortage. I think this is a particularly interesting example because the seller specifically says that the reason he raised prices was to get people to stop panic-buying and it's pretty clear that the alternative was a physical shortage, leaving some buyers completely out in the cold. As I was reading this, it did occur to me that one upside of today's crazy gas prices is that, as an economics teacher, it allows me to talk about the gas shortages of the 1970's without sounding like I'm just old!
By now, you may have heard about the biology professor at Louisiana State (Baton Rouge) who was removed from teaching an intro course where "more than 90 percent of the students... were failing or had dropped the class." The majority of the comments on the Inside Higher Ed story about it are supportive of the professor, particularly given that it seems like the administration did not even talk to her about the situation before acting. I tend to fall in the "there's got to be more to the story so I'll reserve judgment" camp but the story definitely struck a nerve with me, partly because I recently spent 30 minutes "debating" with a student about whether the last midterm was "too hard" and the whole conversation was super-frustrating. To give some background: I give three midterms and a cumulative final, plus have clicker points and Aplia assignments that make up about 20% of the final grade. I do not curve individual exams but will cu
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