Robert Giffen Econ 490 Fall 2019 Blog

Coming out of high school, I was split between engineering and business majors. I enjoyed my science, math, accounting, and economics classes, however, I enjoyed the business and economics classes slightly more. Ultimately I chose what I saw as the safer choice, engineering. Engineering degrees typically earn more money and it is easier to get into the business field  with an MBA, regardless of your undergraduate degree. I didn’t have a strong preference, so I picked the safer option. This is similar to the equilibrium game where the Pareto dominated outcome is the expected outcome. Although I enjoyed my business classes slightly more, I went with what I believed had the lowest risk. As you can probably tell, this decision was the right one for me because I am now happily in economics. Looking back at it, I wish I was more risk prone and had originally chosen  a business related major. Each summer I worked or had an internship to gain experience and ultimately get...

1.       Half of my blog posts connect the prompts back to my work experience, interning and working as a warehouse associate. This isn’t all surprising to me because a large portion of the topics so far are somehow related to the workforce. Another theme that I noticed when reviewing my old posts is that all of them are pessimistic. They point out negative aspects of jobs I’ve had or poke holes in situations I’ve been in. I didn’t intentionally do this and only noticed once I reread them. I’m assuming this is because it could be easier to write from a negative point of view and I subconsciously was doing this. 2.         Within my opportunism blog post, I was able to connect to the idea of labor being used as a buffer. I experienced it firsthand and never truly realized exactly what was happening until I took this class. Looking back at it now, it is clear that I could have connected this idea into my first blog post. This wa...

If the university gave each student an allocation of Illinibucks, it would incentivize students to use “pay” for what matters the most, also it would give the University  more information on what students want. Students would put their hypothetical money where their mouth is and in turn the university would be able to collect data on what students prefer.  Illinibucks would primarily be used to register for classes earlier than others. Registering for classes can be a pain, even as a senior who has priority registration. Classes fill up extremely quickly and if you must change your schedule later it can be very difficult to get into classes. Allowing the ability to use your Illinibucks to get even earlier registration would ameliorate this situation slightly. It would allow students who truly need or want a certain class to allocate their Illinibucks to ensure they have a better chance of getting a seat in the class. This would be beneficial to freshmen who may be i...