Christina Romer ECON 490 Fall 2017 Blog

First off, I am sorry to see that this class is coming to an end. I really enjoyed this class, and even though I was not the most vocal during the class sessions, am one of those students who engages by listening. The format was unique, something I’ll touch on later, but one that will be memorable. I also enjoyed hearing about Professor Arvan’s experiences. I think one of the things that helps me to learn the best is hearing about an example, in this case situations that he had faced or lessons learned, something to help it stick in my mind. Some of the lessons that I learned in the course were about the different aspects of human capital, the importance of identities within organization, the value of intrinsic motivation and all of the economic models that we learned about. It was interesting for me to learn about the different aspects that go into human capital, and also about the short versus long term benefits. The way that we learned about it class, with learning the topic first...

With the principal-agent model, the actuality of these situations are day-in and day-out situations, but often times the triangle agent model is one that is more factor based. One that sticks in my mind as a situation that I saw from afar was this summer while I was working for large corporation in Chicago. The group that I was with had a main manager, with her reporting to the department head. The group used to be co-managed before another department needed a manager. With the change of a single manager, the manager implemented unofficial teams to include senior members of the team as team leaders, helping her workload in terms of assisting the group. While everyone still reported to the main manager, they unofficially were under the leadership of the two senior group members. With these two senior members, while it was not an official triangle principal agent with direct reports, there was an unofficial triangle situation. I noticed this from the people on the team that I was w...

In the first portion of this post, I will do a bit of reflection on the last week of class. Learning about the insurance model was very interesting to me as I have a connection to the insurance industry. Last summer, I interned at AIG, American International Group, one of the leading insurance carriers in the world. Within my internship, I worked in the executive liability group, which focused on the pricing on insurance for companies. Through this experience, I learned a significant amount regarding the insurance industry. I learned a lot about the factors that affect insurance pricing, a significant amount regarding the corporate industry, and a lot about organizations on the whole. Learning about the insurance model from an economic standpoint was very interesting to me as it put the pieces together in terms of connecting the dots from my summer. Being able to put it all together was something that really helped me to make sense of the model. -------------------------------------...

As someone who categorizes themselves as relatively risk adverse, many of my past and current decisions have been made looking forward to the future. In this post, I think that my decisions would be best understood in the context of reducing income risk by grouping them into three categories: college, extra-curricular, and financial. The first category of decisions is those that deal directly with college. Thinking back to when I was deciding what school to go to, I had looked at different statistics in terms of post-graduation. I had looked at graduation rates as well as job placement, specifically with my initial program. I had come into college in the Actuarial Science program based on my love of and skills in math. The University of Illinois is an accredited university on the Center of Excellence list for actuaries, which is what employers look for when recruiting students. While I am not in the program anymore, I knew that overall the University of Illinois was highly ranked ...

In reading back through my posts, I would say one of the themes that ties through from all my posts is my ties to the University of Illinois and those experiences. Majority of my posts revolved around student government experiences or the organization’s structure. The posts have helped me to look at my past experiences and be able to reflect on what I learned through those experiences. As a senior, I have been much more reflective as of late on what I have accomplished, learned and how I’ve grown. Student government has taught me about the person I am, but also has helped to guide me on the path of where I want to go in the future. I think that is why many of my posts have been rooted in my student government experience. It has been a big part of my life, and now seeing them through different economic lenses has been rewarding. Aside from addressing the prompts, I think that there are additional ways to tie what I wrote about to the course themes. There are aspects in each anecdot...

If the University of Illinois were to begin implementing a program called Illinibucks to give students the ability to spend this currency to move spots in line, I believe that it would be a well-received program. Based on the premise and goal of this program, I think that there would be multiple categories that this could be used for. As mentioned, registering for classes is done on a priority basis, with top priority given to Honors students and athletes, followed by credit class year. For the students who are not in one of these priority groups, I believe that the idea of utilizing Illinibucks would be very well received. For those who are in large majors or really want to get into a specific class, they might be willing to spend their Illinibucks. Another thing on campus that would be able to utilize the Illinibucks program would be parking. For those that want to park on campus, it is often difficult to find a spot and expensive over the course of the semester. Depending on the qu...