Political Economy and You

1. Political Economy and You

2. Plan • Questions • Economic development and “gestation” • Distributions, opportunities, and your futures • Finale

3. Weighting the exams &Rational expectations • Rational expectations: the best predictor for future performance is past performance • Expected final grade = midterm grade • More precisely: • Final grade = midterm grade + >shock< • The shock is unobserved to me • Still, unless your performance deviates a GREAT deal, you’ll end up with roughly the same grade as the mid-term • So, for most of you, allowing you to weight the exam will make no difference

4. Rational expectations & you • You have bright futures! • You’re winners from globalization! • And yet you’re suffering • Anxiety about the future • Malaise

5. “failure to launch” “boomerang generation” “not just young people moving back home but also young people taking longer to reach adulthood overall.” “transition to adulthood” marked by 5 milestones: 1.completing school, 2.leaving home, 3.becoming financially independent, 4.marrying, and 5.having a child. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?pagewanted=all

6. Maybe great sophistication requires longer “gestation” periods?

7. Amoeba Time with Parent

8. Gestation periods http://www.livescience.com/16186-pregnant-animals-gestation-time-infographic.html

9. http://jeb.biologists.org/content/208/9/1731/F3.expansion.htmlhttp://jeb.biologists.org/content/208/9/1731/F3.expansion.html

10. THE DISCOVERY OF adolescence is generally dated to 1904, with the publication of the massive study “Adolescence,” by G. Stanley Hall, The median age at first marriage in the early 1970s, when the baby boomers were young, was 21 for women and 23 for men; by 2009 it had climbed to 26 for women and 28 for men, five years in a little more than a generation. Watch from 0:16-1:08 http://videos.wisegeek.com/videos/516902310.htm

11. Sophistication leads to longer “gestation” periods? • The more society advances  • The more discoveries  • The more for the next generation to learn  • The longer it takes

13. Distributions And what you’re doing to shape yours…

19. What are you doing in college?

20. Implicit throughout the class • Theory • Philosophy (from ancient to modern thinkers) • Logic (game theory) • Empirics • Data (qualitative, quantitative) • History • Statistics

21. To understand international relations You need a broad liberal arts education

22. Undergraduate education & the 3 r’s • readin’ • ’ritin’ • ’rithmetic • Broad education…

23. Skills • Become well-read • Learn to write well • Learn statistics • Learn a foreign language (fluent!)

24. Breadth of undergraduate education & life opportunities Life opportunities Breadth of undergraduate education

25. Graduate school is different (not harder) • Fewer hours in class, more hours studying • Greater opportunity costs • Grades not important • Be focused! • Statement of purpose

26. Writing • First sentence – most important! • Organize your argument into sections • What is the question? • What is your answer (or what is the debate)? • What is your evidence? • Why should we care? • Lay this out in the 1st para • Return to each in its own section (paper outline): • Background literature • Your theory/argument • Evidence • The intro/conclusion should answer the “so what” question

27. Relationships • Letter of recommendation • Network of friends • Rolling the dice @ Georgetown • Amazing

28. Next step: • “What are you going to do when you graduate?” = • “How are you doing?” = • “Hello” • I.e., well intentioned but vacuous question • Don’t let it bring you down! • No one knows @ 22 what life will present them

29. What do we know?

30. Distribution of opportunities before education

31. Distribution of opportunities after education

32. You have bright futures

33. YOU ARE GEORGETOWN! • Privilege • Thank you

34. Thank you