Monday 18 April 2011

A question of economics

Fantasy Bob understands that the forthcoming  Higher Economics exam paper about to be undertaken by anxious students the length and breadth of Scotland will contain the following questions which may also be of interest to his readers.  
 

  • Hotelling's law is an observation in economics that in many markets it is rational for producers to make their products as similar as possible. This is also referred to as the principle of minimum differentiation as well as Hotelling's linear city model.  Discuss with reference to the IPL.

  • Compare and contrast a Citi Moment of Success with a Royal Bank of Scotland Point of Abject Failure.  You may draw attention to the salaries of those involved.

  • The number of DLF maximums is approaching record level.  Taking account of the laws of supply and demand, what level should be reached before the central bank must consider devaluation?

  • Describe Adam Smith's bowling action. 

3 comments:

  1. Adam Smith was a proponent of the Invisible Hand Theory, which suggests that he was a wrist-spinner with a fast action (see Wealth of Nations, Game theory etc)

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  2. A reasonable theory, but FB suspects that as a man of the enlightenment Smith would eschew the esoteric mystical properties of wrist spin and prefer the rational discourse of wicket to wicket seam up bowling.

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  3. An alternative proposition would be the Jeff Thompson- style slinging action, where the bowler's arm is hidden from the batsman until the instant of delivery. This would, from past experience, be less economical and therefore unlikely to appeal.

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