I am not sure how these folks create their ranking but I like the fact that USC Economics has a Masters Degree that is ranked #9 in the USA.  Over the last year, we have been MS STEM certified and now we are also creating a new MS degree in Spatial Economics and Data Science.  This blended degree in urban economics, econometrics and formal GIS training (in partnership with the USC Spatial Sciences Institute) will be a strong program. 

Here is my revised set of notes.   These problems can be covered in three weeks in either an undergraduate or a graduate class and the students will walk away having a better sense of price theory.

Take a look at the new problem on page 34.  A person gains utility from pizza and from being healthy.  Pollution exposure lowers one's health.  The good news is that a person can buy medicine to offset the pollution exposure.  But, the person has a finite amount of income. The person faces a tradeoff between health and pizza consumption.

On page 34, I present a given person's consumption choices of medicine and pizza at 4 points in time as the outdoor pollution level changes and as the market prices change.  I ask the reader to solve for what restrictions can be placed on preferences as implied by the observed choices.

I then give the reader a parametric form for the utility function and ask the reader to figure her best guess of the consumer's MRS.  This MRS must rationalize the consumer choice data I have provided so revealed preference allows for an estimation of the utility function.   I then ask the reader to use this utility function to conduct a counter-factual exercise.   I also use this example to remind the reader what "partial identification" means.

So,  is this useful?  At a price of zero, I think the answer is "yes".  At USC, we will run an experiment to see if this helps our new students to build up intuition. If the answer is "No", then we won't run this experiment again.   MWG for 30 weeks?  Or Price Theory for X weeks and MWG for 30-X weeks?  We will figure out the solution to this problem!   To calculate the first order conditions of this maximization problem , we need to understand the production function of knowledge.  What educational inputs actually make a young scholar a better economist?

Here is a free copy of my updated set of Price Theory problems.  These are new problems that I have written down based on my memories of Gary Becker and Sherwin Rosen's Price Theory classes from 30 years ago.  I will teach these problems during my 3 week stint teaching Ph.D Micro at USC this fall.    Here is the Cover I picked for the $1 Amazon version of the book;



Classy and accurate?   

I am looking for somebody to produce a clean set of answers to my 40 pages of questions posed here.   Over the last two weeks, I have written out these questions because I'll be teaching the first part of USC's Ph.D. micro class this Fall.  As you will see, these classes involve minimal real mathematics but they require some economic thinking.    We will cover all of this material in 3 weeks as I will push the pace and try to get the new generation of young people to "think like economists".

For those of you who take a careful look at these problems, I hope you see how I use simple theory to teach revealed preference logic and then I turn the questions around ask how to use evidence and the structure of the model to solve for what must be the decision maker's objective function.   I don't believe that good Ph.D. programs have spent enough time talking in the first year about "identification" of meaningful economic parameters.  Reduced form courses talk about identifying "causal effects"  (see Angrist) but much less time talking about how from observing a person's choices when confronted with different budget constraints --- what we have learned about this person assuming the person is maximizing the same objective function over time and chooses wisely. 

I live close to UCLA and the streets of Westwood are covered with "The Bird".   These are scooters that travel at a speed of up to 15 MPG and cost $1 to rent and 15 cents per minute of use.  The Bird is produced by Xiaomi (a Chinese company).  My rough guess is that it costs this company $250 to make this product.

Let's do some arithmetic about the operating profit per bird.

Let there be sunshine for 12 hours a day so there are 720 minutes of sunshine a day. It rarely rains in LA.  Let the "occupancy rate" for the typical Bird be 5%.    Let the typical trip take 5 minutes.

So, the typical bird makes (1/20)*(720/5) trips per day= 7 trips per day.  That sounds pretty low to me but let's work with this.

The expected revenue per day per bird = 7*1 + 7*.15*5 =  $12.25

Now keep in mind that unlike UberX , you do not pay the driver (you are the driver) and there is no parking cost.

Suppose that your Bird lives for 1 year.  Your expected revenue  = 365*12.25 =  $4,471

What are your costs?  You must buy the bird and fuel the bird. 

Here is a piece describing the urban economics of fueling the bird.   The bird's App signals that it is low on electricity.  A pickup truck swings by driven by a "gig economy" person who then takes them home and used special equipment to recharge them. Once they are recharged, they are redeployed.

If I am right about the expected revenue per Bird, then even if the refueling guys are expensive this is still a profitable enterprise.

If these "birds" could be fitted with solar panels to recharge themselves, then the middle men refuelers could also be cut out from this chain.

As I watch the young people at UCLA use these, I see that this is a popular alternative for UberX for short rides.   If young people originate and end their trips in central locations then the next user of the Bird will easily find one and the utilization rate (my 5% listed above) could increase.