The Su Post

The Principle-Agent problem means the motivation of one party (usually the agent) to act on behalf of another (the principal). Agency problems arise in a variety of different contexts, and arise when the incentives between the agent and the principal are not perfectly aligned and conflicts of interest arise. As a result the agent may be tempted to act in his or her own interest rather the principal’s. Conflicts of interest are almost inevitable. One of the famous example that pops out of my mind is the Enron scandal revealed in 2001, which eventually led to the bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation and the dissolution of Arthur Anderson. Enron's board of directors, many analysts believe, failed to carry out its regulatory role in the company and rejected its oversight responsibilities, causing the company to venture into illegal activity. Company leadership, including boards of directors and the executive team, does not necessarily have the same interests as shareholders. It is ...

I think the story that attracts me the most is sharing marbles . Michael Tomasello and Katharina Hanmann, two German developmental psychologists, set up an experiments with 3 years old children who can get marbles as rewards by pulling ropes on a machine. These children may be better off if they engage in gift exchanging and team work. The experiment has three different scenarios. The first one is that two children pull ropes together, but one of the children gets 3 marbles while the other can only get one. The result of this scenario shows that children will equalize their marbles around 75% of the time. The second scenario is that 2 children will receive marbles. However, one will have three times more marbles than the other one. The result of this scenario shows that the one with more marbles will not give off their rewards to the other one who has less marbles. The last scenario is that 2 children do not pull the ropes together to get marbles . Nonetheless, one will get 3 marbles ...

First of all, I think the prompt for this week is very interesting. I don’t have a job lined up for when I graduated (I am graduating in December). However, my future plan is absolutely clear. Unlike most of other students in the class, being involved in a career associated with economics is not in my goal. Therefore, in the following parts, I will first talk about the kind of job/ career I plan to pursue after graduation and its location. Secondly, I will talk about some of my efforts and decisions during college that contribute to my future job and income risk. I am a dual degree student majoring in Kinesiology and Economics. I started following the pre- med path when I was a sophomore. Becoming a physician in sports medicine field is my dream ever since I was a teenager. Therefore, due to the specialty of my choice, I can only continue to stay in school (medical school) for another 4 years and pass the board exam before I actually jump in the “real world”. Compared to my ot...

When going over the previous blog posts that I have written, I think they do share some small themes or similarities. I have to admit that I didn’t do a good job in posting blogs as the class requirement due to my extremely busy medical school application and interview. However, I would still think of examples for those blogs that I missed and participated in the class discussion. I think the connections between my previous blogs are my personal experiences, and I really try to give details to readers so that they can understand what I am trying to express out of the text. For instance, in my blog post “Experience with Organizations and Transaction Costs”, I talked about my working experience as a shift leader at Aplus Karaoke. I didn’t expect most readers know the environment of a standard Karaoke business, but I am sure with my explanations of my trainings and duties, most readers will know what it is like to work in a busy and high pressure place. As for connecting what I wrot...

The successful team which I work with is actually the team that I am working with right now. I have a part time job at the APlus VIP Lounge at downtown Urbana. My position is shift leader and I think the team structure at APlus VIP Lounge confirm to the Simple Hierarchy team configurations. APlus VIP Lounge is a café/bar/KTV, people usually come and reserve their own private room (which can host around 10-15 people) and sing karaoke. The rate is calculated by hours. Aplus also provides alcohol services and café drink. On a busy night like Friday night and Saturday night, we will usually have 8 people on site. 1 manager, 1 shift leader (me), 1 bar tender, 4 waiters/waitress, 1 bus boy. In the textbook, simple hierarchy team configuration is described as the model that with a middle manager who reports to the boss and in turn supervises and communicates with others. In this case, the Aplus manager is the boss, and I am the “manager” in the middle. Before opening, I will ask the wa...

I am a personal trainer at the Campus Recreation. My job is providing professional guidance and suggestions to clients based on their specific needs. Before joining the team, I need to get certificates from NASM to become a qualified trainer. Moreover, CPA certification is also required. Clients are randomly assigned to me by the system after clients signing up on the website. Usually I will have an initial meeting with my clients before our first training session. During the initial meeting, I will gain a deeper understanding of my clients’ life behaviors and exercise preference. After knowing the exercising goals of my clients, I will come up with specific plans. I will also set up a fixed schedule with my clients during the initial meeting. Normally, a training session will last for an hour. The first 10-15 minutes I will ask my clients to warm up and do some active stretches. Then, I will spend around 35-40 minutes to do strength training. The rest of the session will co...

Paul Robert Milgrom was born in April 20, 1948 in Detroit, Michigan. Milgrom is the Shirley and Leonard Ely professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Economics at Stanford University and professor, by courtesy, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a winner of the 2008 Nemmers Prize in Economics and the 2012 BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge award. Milgrom was born to Abraham Isaac Milgrom (born in Toronto, Canada) and Anne Lillian Finkelstein (born in Detroit). He was the second of four sons. At the age of six, his family moved to Oak Park, Michigan and Milgrom attended the Dewey School and then Oak Park High School (Michigan). In high school, Milgrom learned to play and analyze chess. He soon shifted his interests in strategic games to bridge. Milgrom showed an early interest in mathematics and attended summer programs at Ohio State University and ente...