In this article, I provide a general model to incentivize student involvement in an economics course on an ongoing basis. Rather than presenting students with a discrete number of diverse experiments to illustrate different economic concepts, I opt for the adoption of a single experiment that...

In fall 2003, the old adage that economics is the “dismal science” lived up to its name at the institution where I teach. That fall, 40% of our introductory students received grades of D or F, or withdrew. To better understand this, I collected data from principles students in 2005,...

For many countries located around the equatorial region, climate phenomenon such as El Niño southern oscillation or ENSO has enormous impact on their economies. In the case of countries with a high degree of dependency on water resources for energy generation, the impact of ENSO has been...

The intuition behind linear regression can be difficult for students to grasp particularly without a readily accessible context. This paper uses basketball statistics to demonstrate the purpose of linear regression and to explain how to interpret its results. In particular, the student will...

This paper presents a comparative view of the training of economists in Latin America, analyzing curricula, commonly utilized textbooks, professors' time-commitments, teaching methods, and the use of technologies and computational tools. Also, following the approach of Colander (2005), the paper...

This paper uses variations in a popular parlor game to provide useful instructional benefits. The paper builds a classroom activity to nudge students towards thinking in a backward-inductive manner. The pedagogic innovation is in introducing the game repeatedly with progressively smaller action...

In this short expository note I provide an overview of leveraged buy-out transactions (“LBOs”). I show in detail how an LBO transaction is structured and financed, as well as the typical return profile. I also provide a sample transaction accompanied by financial projections, debt repayment...

In this paper, we examine two factors that may affect student achievement in economics principles courses. First, we examine the effect of working for pay on course performance at a commuter school where 70 percent of the student body works for pay at least part time. Second, we examine how the...