Where we are this week

Tomorrow my aim is to begin with the PowerPoint from the seventh class session in the middle.  We did the early part on transfer pricing last Thursday.  So we'll start with Management and Coordination by other means than price.  You'll note that price creeps back into the the discussion.  This covers the first part of chapter 4 in M&R.  The inspiration is a paper by Weitzman called Prices and Quantities.  I will also spend a little time here talking about what I know regarding "project management" which I hope will make the discussion a bit more realistic.

After that I'd like to have a conversation based on your posts for this week - about possibly bringing price in to partially alleviate situations where students have to wait to get something on campus.

Time willing, we'll then go onto the PowerPoint for the eighth class session, the bulk of which is on B&D chapter 3, which introduces the structural frame.  What we don't get to tomorrow we'll get to on Thursday.

I've been having a hard time trying to produce something reasonable on the second half of chapter 4 in M&R particularly the part on information efficiency in selecting the type of controls.  So I will write up my reflection later this evening, to indicate the source of my misgivings.  We'll discuss that on Thursday as well.  Incidentally, the reasons I suggested you read that piece on the Lessons from Tal Afar are tied to the misgivings.  The issues are quite similar to what I wrote about in my Uncertainty paper that is linked on the Useful Links Tab.

The last part of chapter 4 on increasing returns, core competency and complementarities, all of which you can describe with one term, "positioning," should be straightforward enough in conception.  We'll spend some time getting the jargon right and making sure we understand what is at issue.  At the moment there are no slides for that part. I'm guessing we won't get to that till next Tuesday, but if it seems likely we'll do it this Thursday, I'll produce some slides tomorrow.

Also, I promised to have for you the schedule of your presentations.  We'll do that on Thursday.

I'm hoping the weather is not too bad tomorrow.  I hate being out in freezing rain!