Marriage Trade

Bryan is not just an economist in the classroom or on paper. He's an economist everyday in all aspects of his life, even marriage.

Most people say marriage is full of sacrifice, but they don't know the marriage of an economist. Bryan doesn't believe in sacrifice as an effective method of dealing with things or people. When you sacrifice, you are giving up something valuable for something less valuable. That's the nature of the word.

Bryan uses fancy economic terms words to describe this. A Pareto gain is something that you can do and any everyone wins. Kaldor gain is when someone wins and someone loses, the gains to the winner outweigh the loss of the loser. According to Bryan, sacrifice is the opposite: the loser loses a lot and the winner gains very little.

Trade and bargaining ensures that all Kaldor gains become Pareto gains because there is compensation. For each thing you'd like to have in marriage, you'll have to compensate your partner. This leads to conversations with Bryan that go something like this. "How much do you want to go to Patron's? $10? $5?" Sometimes it's hard for me to put price tags on experiences or items or choices, so Bryan has altered his approach with services, freedom and gifts.

In order to show the success of our trading, here are some recent trades made in the Buckley house:

I plan our improv schedule, apply to festivals, do the marketing and Bryan packs for trips, prints out posters, tells me where to put them, gathers all props (bells, slips of paper, whistle, etc)

Bryan got Starcraft and I got a weekly stipend to eat out with girlfriends

Bryan mows the lawn and I make an intense, fancy meal.

I clean the kitchen and the bathrooms; Bryan does the laundry and the dishes.

Bryan makes the budget and keeps stats; I do the shopping and the bill paying.

Everything has a price. This is one of Bryan's foundational thoughts.

Why An Economist Can't Love Dogs

Since we moved to Oklahoma, we have moved into a house with a fenced in backyard and we're doing well financially. I thought it fitting to convince Bryan that we needed a dog. Bryan has been anti-dog since we were dating. Partly because his family is a no pet family, but mostly because he's an economist.

Today, I sent Bryan a quiz from Animal Planet that tells you what breed dog will be the best fit for you. I thought maybe if he could find a dog that matched his personality and desire for little effort he might find his way to my side of the camp. Oh, boy, was I wrong!

Instead, this is his email:

Alright, I played your game. My result was:
A welsh corgi
http://animal.discovery.com/breedselector/dogprofile.do?id=1170

This does not mean I want a dog!

This site says the cost of owning a dog runs about $1,000 per year. $14,000 over the life of a dog.
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+2106&aid=1543

The cost of a 1 week Mediterranean Cruise:
$2,000 for plane tickets to Spain
$2,600 for the cruise
$2,000 for gambling, drinking etc

Total: $6,600
http://www.royalcaribbeandeals.co.uk/fusion/detailship.pl?shipid=369&sid=7477

So would you rather have 2 amazing trips and have $800 left over for clothes or a dog?

Ha ha ha. See, I can play this game too.

Love you, my pet.

He beats me on the money and the facts. And that cruise sounds incredible. How can you argue love and affection of a dog against the reasoning of an economist? I'll have to keep trying.

An Economist's Birthday

My husband The Economist celebrated his birthday yesterday exactly how he liked.

His present arrived in the mail on Monday, and after a fascinating argument about opportunity cost, he convinced me to let him open it. Why should I let him wait two days to enjoy something that he could enjoy now?

Then, there was his cake. Of course, every year I make something different but it revolves around his favorite flavor: chocolate. This year, I made Snickers Cupcakes. It made sense to use two complementary goods to create one highly demanded product (man, I should be an economist!). These cupcakes are superior to all other cupcakes in that once they are baked from scratch, I cut the center out to fill it with Snickers pieces and frosted them with homemade frosting made from one pound of sugar. Sweet lord, they were sugary! Due to the diminishing marginal returns, we could only enjoy one.

For dinner, we went out to dinner the local steakhouse (there's only one in our small town). It was nice, and Bryan had one of his favorites: a thick, messy burger. We enjoyed some consumer surplus because the dessert was free!

Okay, that's enough of my attempt at economics. Next time, I'll be sure to get Bryan to help me, but it's his birthday, so a man should rest.

My husband is better than yours.

Part of being happy in my marriage is that Dr. Bryan Buckley is just so freaking awesome. One evening, he's going on about the literature of Ayn Rand over stir fry. Another night, he's explaining the economics of prostitutes over my roasted chicken.

The other night, Bryan provided everyone (and my reblogging friend Harrison) with a little economics lesson. Seems like he beat even THE economics blog to the punch: The Prisoner's Dillemma Makes a Reality TV Appearance.

Boom. Let's go out for margaritas and fajitas!

Economics of the Bachelor Pad

Note this economic analysis came not of Dr. Buckley's desire to watch the Bachelor Pad. He has a very convincing wife who loves reality tv and strategy gameshows.

Tonight was the finale of The Bachelor Pad, which if you haven't been watching, let me catch you up:
A bunch of the favorite and not so favorite contestants of previous seasons of the Bachelor (the dating game show with 1 guy and 25 women or 1 lady and 25 men) come together in one giant sexy house to compete for $250,000 and possibly a chance at love. Various alliances were made; many relationships formed; competitions were intense. For the final six, the top three guys picked a girl to create a team, or a couple. Everyone has been voted out except one couple Natalie and Dave.

Okay, you're caught up. We have Natalie and Dave. Natalie is a party girl, and she has kissed the most guys, drank the most and played on different sides of the ladies. Dave has backstabbed some of the guys, broken hearts of two ladies and had a good time. But, through all of this, the pair claimed they were developing a slow relationship which might possibly lead to love.

Here they are, so close to winning, and the host Chris Harrison offers them a choice. They can choose to share the $250,000 evenly, or they can choose to keep it all for themselves. Only, it gets more interesting.

If they both choose to share it, they will split the money evenly and each get $125,000.
If one chooses to share it and the other chooses to keep it, the one who chose to keep it gets the whole $250,000 and the other gets nothing.
If they both choose to keep it, the money gets split evenly among the contestants who've been kicked out and are sitting onstage.

Okay, get ready for some economics.

This is a Prisoner's Dilemma. What you need to think about is a Best Response Function. What is your best move in response to whatever they do?

Let's think about it from Dave's point of view. If she's definitely going to keep the money for herself, does he prefer to play keep and give the prize up to the losers of cast or does he prefer to share, so she can win? If Natalie's going to play share, what is his best response? Would he prefer to split the money with her or screw her over? If he preferred giving her the money rather than the chance of having to give the money to the rest of the cast, then share is his best response in either case.

Natalie might know that, and then she has her best response function. Does she want to share the prize money of $250,000 with him or does she want to keep it all? What do you think happened?

Cover Charges and Other Bar Economics

This weekend, we went to a bar that had a $5 cover charge. Once inside, we bought a round of drinks. And another. We were having fun with some friends, and I remembered we had beer at home.

I said, "Bryan, let's go home and drink some free beer!" Well, that was not the right thing to say. We paid for the beer, so it's not free.

I continued my non-PhD thought process and said, "Let's get one more round since we paid $5 to get in!" Again, not right.

Bryan explains that the $5 cover charge is a sunk cost, so it shouldn't have any bearing on our current decision making process. It's a common misconception called the Sunk Cost Fallacy.

Bryan continues, it should be as if we got in free; it's essentially the same. What you want to think about is the benefit of being there for another hour versus the opportunity cost of being there for another hour. Because the cover charge is something we've already incurred, it does not really affect the cost or benefit of being there for another hour.

And who says economics doesn't relate to the real world?

Professors of Different Fields Make Different Amounts

We had dinner last night with the manager of the Jazz Lab in our new small town. She was a wonderful guest who came bearing wine and fancy cheese which accompanied my pasta dish.

Over dinner, she mentioned the salary of the jazz professors, those with doctoral degrees and years of experience, and I was surprised that it was much lower than what Bryan is making.

Apparently, that's the case. And for my economist husband, it was obvious that those of different fields would make different amounts. But for those of you who think like me, let me break it down:

According to Salary.com's Salary Wizard (median salaries),
an accounting professor makes $104,000
a business professor makes $75,111
a chemistry professor makes $51,445
a civil engineering professor makes $68,311
a communications professor makes $52,450
a drama professor makes $48,380
an economics professor makes $67,573
an education professor makes $53,000
an English professor makes $50,750
a music professor makes $49,500

Bryan explained to me that part of the salary for anything represents your opportunity cost which is typically what you could do somewhere else.

If you think about an accountant, in order to get her to be a professor, you'd have to pay her at least what she would make in the business world. You won't get people to leave the business world unless you pay well. Also, there's the difficulty in the field of study that contributes. Accounting is really difficult; it's complicated, and that's why they make more money. It's all about opportunity cost, apparently.

Interesting. I learned something new.

Don't Send Emails Like This

Oh my god brian for the love of god I will send it to you today im so sorry I haven’t even checked my email thank you so much for reminding me im so sorry. And thank you for the update!
-J

Examples To Use in Class

As I help grade the multiple choice section as carefully as possible, Bryan furrows over his students' handwritten attempts at economic theory.

Reading over questions 16-20, I giggle. Bryan is using the country of Dortugal (Strongbad, anybody?) and for his goods: Pogs and Slammers in his international trade section. I asked Bryan if he knew that he was the coolest professor ever. Of course, he's bashful and tells me to stop. But then he listed for me all the great (and eccentrically Bryan) examples he uses for his students.

Dr. Buckley's Top Examples of Goods
-rubber ducks
-slinkies
-skip its (commercial - I was a skip it addict as a child)
-rubber chickens
-koosh balls
-toobers and zots
-legos
-drunks
-wine and cheese
-orphans and movies: Brad and Angelina (comparative advantage)

I want to take his class next fall.

Excerpts from Dr. Buckley's Syllabus

Tests are par for the course in college. Dr. Buckley is no different: he offers three exams. And he has the coolest exam policy I've ever heard of.

There are no makeup exams - for any reason. According to the syllabus, you can decide not to take either the 1st or 2nd exam. If you opt not to take the 2nd exam, then the 15% of your grade represented by that exam gets shifted to your 1st and Final Exams, so that they are worth 17.5% and 27.5% respectively. You can not choose to miss both the first and the second exam, and you must take the final.

Those are the rules. Do what makes you best off.


Can you say live your life according to what you teach? This man is such an economist.

Big News

This morning, I've made it public internet knowledge that my husband, the professor, has accepted a tenure track job at NSUOK. What's the big deal? I had no clue. When I was a student, I didn't pay much attention to the professors and their career tracks. Here's the breakdown, as I understand it from Bryan.

GRAD STUDENT: teaches a section or two; no real respect in the research world
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR: teaches just a few sections, usually by choice
VISITING PROFESSOR: one to two year contracts, focus on teaching, most PhDs start here anywhere from 1-15 years
TENURE TRACK PROFESSOR: THE job, after 5-6 years teaching and researching, you are eligible for tenure, stability and prestige
TENURED PROFESSOR: after being a great teacher and generous with research, you've "hit it big" aka you can teach whatever you want and can't get fired
CHAIR OF DEPT: you can decide who stays and who leaves, runs department

Now you know.

Writing for Publishing

Everyone knows the saying "Publish or Perish" but does anyone know how to publish? I didn't know, and last night, Dr. Buckley enlightened me.

Here's my interpretation of How to Write a Publishable Research Paper in Economics
1. First, think of a clever idea, preferably something topical to current news and social awareness (i.e. environmental economics or political economics).
2. Develop a mathematical model (90% of the time, it's calculus) that is solvable, applicable and interesting.
3. Cleverly find a data set to use for your mathematical model. This is the big one. It's not really a skill, but luck: finding a set that is complete and manageable. Then it's crunching numbers and crunching more numbers. Remember to account for differences in characteristics (i.e. whether a state is a coastal state).
4. Apply a clever econometric method.
5. Revise, edit and revise.
6. Submit to one journal at a time. If you are accepted, great; add it to your resume. If you are rejected, select another journal and resubmit.

Additional note: you might have a good idea and find that there is no data. And that sucks.

Apparently, you have to be an economist, a statistician, a calculus mathematician and a writer to pull this thing off. I'm already exhausted.

Teaching as You Learn

I always thought you could learn the most from someone who has been teaching the same thing for years, you know, an expert. Well, Dr. Buckley offered an interesting alternative.

He claims that a teacher who just relearned the material might actually end up being a more effective teacher. Without the routine lecture, a teacher who teaches something new to their course catalogue could offer more insight, having just refreshed their own knowledge, they would be better able to know which parts are more difficult and require extra time for understanding. Sometimes, Dr. Buckley says, teachers are so used to their line of thinking that it's difficult to see how someone might not understand.

Oh, the tough life of being a genius...

Variety is Beneficial

One of the benefits of trade is that variety is good. Bryan was telling me that when the Berlin Wall was torn down, Eastern Germany had oranges and apples for the first time. The introduction of these fruits being a benefit of trade. I still wasn't convinced that it was a benefit, this new introduction of fruit. Because how could people who had never had oranges and apples consider these new fruits a benefit? They had never tried them before, and maybe they would never miss them.

Apparently, it's even simpler than that. Bryan broke it down to something I could understand: chocolate. We have one bag of chocolate that is all milk chocolate truffles, and we have another bag of chocolate that has four flavors. If you eat one piece of chocolate from the first bag, it's delicious. If you eat a second one, it's delicious. If you eat a third, it's delicious. At some point, it's going to get less delicious. However, if you eat from the second bag, you will eat perhaps a white chocolate truffle. If you have another truffle, it might be dark. If you have another, it could be milk chocolate. And so on. Because you have four different varieties, the rate of diminishing marginal returns is spread across all four, resulting in a better experience, or a benefit of trade.

Obligatory Introduction

My husband Bryan is an economics expert, literally. He spent a decade at Clemson University (six of them graduate school), emerging victorious with the king of all degrees: his doctorate. Recently, our dinner table has become our own intellectual battleground for discussions about world events, new stupid laws and issues we have with things we are reading.

With all the learning, I'm taking good notes. This blog is my place to share the simple brilliance Bryan shared with me. He's patient in his speaking and clear in his explanations. It's really great to learn from someone who loves what he's talking about and loves the person he's talking to. I think it's the most conducive learning environments out there.

So, why blog? Because economics is something everyone could learn more about. Because I prefer typing to handwriting. Because I want Bryan to see how brilliant a teacher he is. Because there actually is an easy way to explain economics, and that's the way Bryan does it.