Scarcity and productivity I

Materials for class on Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Contents

Slides

Download the slides from today’s lecture.

Paper airplanes and diminishing marginal product

Here’s the average production function from both sections (yay 8:00 AM section!):

And here’s the by-round production function (yay learning!):

Additional references to things brought up in class

• Freakonomics interview with the governor of Rhode Island
• Planet Money on 3D-printed guns
• The Indicator on the war on coal
• Trump and the Emoluments Clause
• Bitcoin drops 50%
  • Helpful explainer Twitter thread on Bitcoin: “bitcoin is math beanie babies”
  • Another helpful explainer thread on Bitcoin: “People are sick of the Federal Reserve, sick of bailouts, sick of inflation. You know what we need? Internet money with the usability of PGP and the stability of BART service”

Feedback for today

Go to this form and answer these three questions (anonymously if you want):

1. What new thing did you learn today?
2. What was the most unclear thing about today’s class?
3. What was the most exciting thing you learned today?