Friday, December 20, 2013

Some Reading for After the Course Concludes

Here is a brief annotated list of things you might look at.  Only the last one is specifically economics.

1.  Finish reading B&D.  It is a good and interesting book.  The second half is on leadership, which we didn't mention at all.  Perhaps we should have spent more time on other parts of the book than what we did.  Particularly, the parts on politics and on the symbolic frame are interesting and perhaps things outside your current experience.

2.  Schon The Reflective Practitioner - I think of teaching as reflective practice.

3.  NAS How People Learn - The first few chapters are very useful, particularly the one on the expert-novice distinction and the next one on transfer.

4. Ericsson et. al.  The Role of Deliberate Practice - The issue of why some people plateau while others keep on learning has to do with deliberate practice, which means on an ongoing basis trying things that are a little bit out of reach but not totally impossible.  It takes a lot of determination to do that or it takes turning the activity into something fun so you persist at it.

5.  Herbert Simon's Nobel Lecture - While this essay was mentioned in the Syllabus at the outset, we didn't spend any time on it.  Now you may be ready to appreciate the ideas that are in it.

6.  Alchian and Demzetz on Economic Organization - This is the definitive piece on the firm as arising from team production and the need for a "residual claimant" to address the monitoring and incentive issues. This is a scholarly paper published in the American Economic Review, one of the very top journals.  But there is no math.  You might find the writing style a bit hard at first because they are writing for academics, not a general audience.

No comments:

Post a Comment