econ 141 ps

1Feedback

(15 points) Answer each question in a sentence or two:
1. What lecture or topic was most interesting to you? What did you enjoy about it?
2. Was there a topic that wasn’t covered in class that you would have liked to see?
3. How many discussion sections did you attend?
4. If you ever attended, what was the most useful feature of the discussion sections?
5. Regardless of whether you attended, was there anything that would have made discussion sections
more useful?
2 Short Questions
Answer each question in a sentence or two:
1. (10 pts) Risk and information:
(a) In your own words, define the concepts of ‘asymmetric information’ and ‘adverse selection’.
(b) Give one example of each and explain how it relates too the concept.
(c) For each example, describe a screening or signaling tool that can address the information issue.
2. (10 pts) What is “payment for ecosystem services (PES)”? List at least three common shortcomings
of existing PES schemes.
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3. (10 pts) Consider a farmer’s decision about whether to purchase a new variety of maize (corn) seeds
advertised as resulting in higher yields (amount of maize produced per area planted).
(a) Describe how the concepts of performance risk, reliability risk, and fit risk might apply in the
case of the farmer’s adoption decision for these new maize seeds.
(b) Give examples of how at least two types of marketing tools might increase the likelihood that the
farmer adopts the new seeds.
3 Final Project Outline
Produce a detailed outline for your final paper. You may produce one outline per group, but each group
member should hand in a copy with their problem set. Make sure to indicate the names of all of your group
members. The outline should include:
Introduction
• What is your topic?
• Why is this topic important/relevant to the class?
• What are the 3-5 main points (concepts from class) you will make in the paper?
Body
• One section for each main point/class concept (3-5 sections)
• In 2-3 sentences, describe the claims you will use to support these points (These claims will be developed
into your topic sentences when you write the final paper.) Try to incorporate class concepts here.
• A very brief summary (in bullets) of the evidence you will gather to support these claims.
• In 2-3 sentences, describe the preliminary idea for your numerical analysis.