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!
I came across an interesting discussion about a 19-year-old intern who was fired from The Gazette in Colorado Springs for plagiarism. There appears to be some controversy over the fact that the editor publicly named the girl in a letter to readers (explaining and apologizing for the plagiarism), with some people saying that doing so was unduly harsh because this incident will now follow her for the rest of her career. I was intrigued by this discussion for two reasons - one, it seems pretty clear to me that this was not a case of ignorance (as I have often encountered with my own students who have no idea how to paraphrase or cite correctly) and two, putting aside the offense itself, I have often struggled with how to handle situations where there are long-term repercussions for a student, repercussions that lead the overall costs to be far higher than might seem warranted for the specific situation. As an example of the latter issue, I have occasionally taught seniors who need to p
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