Computational methods for economics and finance

Greetings from "An introduction to computational methods for economics and finance", at the Australian National University's   Research School of Economics (CBE). This features Nobel Laureate Professor Thomas J. Sargent, of New York University and Professor John Stachurski, ANU. This is something of a masterclass in how to deliver modern classroom based teaching. Along with celebrity speakers, there are hands on exercises using an online code library, and an emphasis on real world applications. This format appeals to students, as indicated by good attendance, despite this being "O" week, with many fun attractions available to students.

As someone trained in FORTRAN it was good to hear it mentioned, in between much Python. ;-)  

Economics of Charity at ANU

Professor John List, Head of the ANU John Mitchell Economics of Poverty Lab, is speaking on "The Economics of Charity" in Canberra, at the ANU College of Business and Economics. I am watching on-line. He is author of "The Voltage Effect: How to Make Good Ideas Great and Great Ideas Scale" (2022). 

Professor List related how in his early work he conducted experiments into getting donations for a university. He found that private donations in advance to a pubic call increases donations, as a quality signal. Taking an extreme example, mentioning there had already been a donation from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation greatly increased subsequent donations. However, traditional economic models on price effects don't work. In particular, different matching ratios (from 1:1 to 1:3) doesn't make a difference.

Another interesting point is that marketing gifts, only tend to work once. Men are more price sensitive than women.

Interestingly Professor List discussed the use of AI, both for experiment, and in practice. 

Overall an interesting talk, but I had some difficulty with the US outlook, terminology, and jargon. At times I had difficulty working out what were US colloquialisms, and what were technical terms from the field.