G601: Problem Set 5: Repeated Games

G601: Problem Set 5: Repeated Games

A. Problems 5.2, 5.5, and 6.1 from Games and Information .

B. Giving Seminars

Perhaps the most important skill in economics is the type of abstract thinking in which you apply an idea learned in one context to a different context. Most Ph.D. students have some talent in this, but your future B.A. and M.B.A. students will most likely be ridiculously bad at it. Suppose that in a few years you want to teach MBA students how to evaluate the threat of entry.

One approach is to teach them a model in which Company A has certain cost and demand data on the new product just invented by Company B, and have them go through some theoretical computations involving Greek letters. Your students will castigate you as an impractical mathematics geek. (That may be true, of couse, even if their reasoning is wrong.)

A second approach is to teach a case study of a bubble wrap packaging company in 1980 trying to decide the dollar magnitude of the threat from entry by a new technology, uncoated plastic bubbles. The students will mostly like this better, and they will have great fun in explaining how stupid the company's managers were not to notice the threat. But if you ask them at the start of next class what they learned, their answer will likely be, ``We learned about the bubble wrap industry.'' And they will criticize you for teaching out-of-date material.

The point here is not so much that you can't win teaching MBA students as to point out that most people cannot see the lessons to be learned from either theoretical models or concrete examples. We do lots of both in G601. The following problem asks you explain in what sense contemporary church worship and research in the economics of asymmetric information face the same task.

Look at the ``Notes on Church Music'' and explain your answers to each of the following questions. In each case, finding one point to use in answering the question is enough.

  1. Which of the points has an analogy in presenting economics papers to professional economists?
  2. Which of the points has an analogy in presenting economics papers to an audience of businessmen or politicians untrained in economic analysis?
  3. Which of the points has no analogy in presenting economics papers? (Be sure to answer the question and explain why the point you choose has no analogy; don't just make the assertion)

Notes on Church Music

These notes are intended for music students or professional musicians who are playing in church services.

  1. Always, always think about the viewpoint of a member of the congregation. What is he feeling at this moment?
  2. Remember that the congregation neither knows nor cares how hard you worked to rehearse. Just because you rehearsed something does not mean you need to use it in the service. Be flexible enough that the minister can ask for another song if the singing is going well, or can drop a song if he decides to stick in a long new prayer or if his sermon goes over. The point of the service is not just for you to play music.
  3. Check out the church sound system. If the volume is too high or too low, it doesn't matter what else you do; you've wrecked the service by your sloppy preparation. Static or mediocre sound quality, on the other hand, is unlikely to make much difference.
  4. The congregation will not notice small flaws such as a few wrong notes, and won't care even if they do notice. Only your own pride will be hurt. So don't put your attention on the kind of technical perfection that teachers use for evaluation--serve your audience.
  5. In contrast to the previous point, you might say that you are playing for God, not for the congregation, and God demands perfection and beauty. Wrong. If beauty of sound were the point, we would expel the rest of the congregation and let you play by yourself without distraction or their nonprofessional voices.
  6. Avoid awkward silences between songs. Keep a drumbeat or some chords going for transition. There is not going to be any clapping, and you need to avoid breaking the mood.
  7. Distinguish sharply between playing accompaniment to hymns and playing alone during offertories, etc. In both cases, the attention should be kept off of you as a performer, and on the objective--worship of God. Playing alone, though, your objective is much closer to that of concert performances, and you can choose music that is complicated and which requires good tone. Playing hymns, you are accompanying more than leading. You should not overwhelm the congregational voices, or have fancy vibratos or flourishes, or complicated repeats, or seek in any way to show your skill. If they notice how well you perform, you've failed.
  8. If you are playing during the offering or some other occasion, fit the time needed. That means deviating from what's written. If you need extra time, have an instrumentalist do some repeats as many times as needed. If the offering finishes, halt in the middle of the song at the end of a convenient phrase rather than playing for another two minutes.
  9. In choosing the musical key, consider the range of the congregation's voices more than your own. There are more of them, and if you're skilled, you're more adaptable than they are anyway.
  10. Start with a song familiar to the congregation before you go on to new ones.
  11. Make sure the congregation know what they are supposed to do at every moment. Give them words to songs, or the numbers, if they are to sing, and if men are to sing one part, for example, indicate that. It's okay to tell them orally, if that doesn't break the mood.

Return to the zzz. Send comments to Prof. Rasmusen. Last updated: February 8, 1998.