Arlitt Lecture

Today's lecture looks to be pretty cool. Dr. Ester Dunflo from MIT is here today to present work in microfinance (a lecture called "The Miracle of Microfinance? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation"). I haven't had a chance to read her paper, but the title suggests data may be contradicting the much-heralded claimed success in development. As I don't know enough yet about the topic, I find it prudent to stay out of the argument :-).

I will post later concerning the lecture.

Centipede, Grim Trigger, and Information

Some colleagues of mine and I are considering putting a research proposal together under the auspices of experimental economics. We keep seeing these really cool results in our game theory class-such as the centipede game-that theoretically don't match up to experiments performed in previous experiments. Beyond the self-selection issues inherent in laboratory economic experiments, we believe the amount of information (and payoff structures in a game of perfect information) can be controlled to produce expected results.

For example, if you have a 5 to 10 minute chat with the person you are soon to play a game against, we believe an "altruistic effect" may be larger, i.e. a person would be willing to achieve higher payoffs regardless if the effect conforms to a Nash Equilibrium.

I don't want to give away too many details (it would be nice to ensure this particular experiment hasn't already been performed!). We'll see where it goes.

About this blog

Howdy!

This is going to be my first serious attempt at a professional-style blog.

Yes, "professional-style." Those who know me know that I disdain pure superficiality.

Anyhow, the goal of this blog is to post economic thoughts, relevant paper ideas, and a general update for anyone who concerns his or her self with Thomas Roderick's economic studies progression/success.

As of this post (24 February 2010 9:30 AM) I am a graduate students in the College of Liberal Arts Economics Department at the University of Texas at Austin. I am in my first year, with comprehensive exams (comps) looming in the near horizon.

I am an alumnus of Brigham Young University ('07) with a B.Sc. in Mathematics and an additional major (BA equivalent) in economics. I had a healthy amount of chemistry, history, political science, and teaching classes thrown in there somewhere.

I worked as an engineer in Dallas with a controls company and as a product tester at woot for the time between graduate school and graduation. Woot was definitely more fun and less stressful!

I can't think of anything else to post here, so let this suffice for now.