Applied Managerial Economics

The Signals vs Noise blog recently cited [via Carly Bishop Cheney] — aside: Carly's home page is dozens of megabytes so you might want to skip the link on your iPhone — the following tweet:

If I get one more inquiry from someone having a huge wedding at an expensive venue asking for ‘recession pricing’ I am going to explode!

Many comments support the logic that because the expenses haven't changed, there is no reason to consider changing the prices. This is, of course, missing half of the equation. A market has a supply curve (this is your expenses) and a demand curve. You are pricing at a markup over your cost, so, indeed, you do have some room to readjust prices.

Certainly, recessions can change the demand curve so it is worth considering whether this has any effect on the elasticity of demand at your current price. If you can increase your profit by lowering prices (thus selling more of your goods or services), you should certainly consider it, but, of course, one must consider the longer terms effects of this strategy. On the other hand, you might also consider raising your prices and selling less, but at a higher price. Elasticity will determine which strategy maximises profit.

I'm surprised that there are so many comments by those who things lowering their price during a recession is such a ridiculous proposition, mainly on the basis that their expenses haven't changed.

Minor Thesis: Inference of Enumerated Types In Java

If you're not from the Computer Science discipline, you can safely skip this post.

After doing some hard drive spring-cleaning, I came across the Latex files relating to my master's thesis at the University of Melbourne. Although I undertook a Masters of Software Systems Engineering by coursework, I was able to write a minor thesis in lieu of 2 subjects.

At the time, compilers and type analysis were of particular interest to me, having thoroughly enjoyed the Compiler Design class at McGill several months earlier. In that class, we wrote a compiler for a toy language called WIG and added features to an existing compiler for the JOOS language, a subset of Java. We used the SableCC lexer/parser, an open source compiler compiler written by another McGill student. I remember staying up several late nights before the project was due. It was great fun.

The forthcoming language enhancements in Java 5 provided a good platform for static code analysis and enhancement; a similar paper inferred generic types, for example. I had also competed a survey of programming languages class which compared functional, logic and imperative language (Haskell, Prolog and Java respectively) taught by Peter Schachte. Peter was kind enough to supervise.

With that background, I thought I would post the PDF of the paper I wrote. I'm not sure if this is the exact paper I submitted, and it certainly includes some typos and, having reread it recently, I can see that my writing needed a bit of work. It is very difficult to decipher some of the content. I suspect I used the most complex symbols and wording possible, but I had slaved through reading similar papers during my research so I must of thought that was the best way to do things.

Without any further ado, please find my paper, Inference of Enumerated Types In Java in PDF format. Note that this paper has not been published in any journal, and has had minimal peer review. It is presented for educational purposes only. However, if you'd like to chat about it, do get in touch.

Microsoft and Google Compete To Supply E-mail to America's Universities

From Time:

Students have been howling that school e-mail accounts are too small to handle their daily deluge of mail and attachments.

This is the same technology gap I blogged about the other day. Most universities are taking note:

In the 2008 national Campus Computing Project (CCP) survey, 42% of schools reported that they had already migrated or were about to migrate to an outsourced student e-mail service. Another 28% said they were considering switching.

This can only translate into corporate adoption of similar practices. Google hopes this leads to mainstream (read: corporate) adoption of web e-mail.

Even if it doesn't boost short-term profits, Google hopes serving schools for free will help broaden acceptance for Web-based e-mail and software services, says Jeff Keltner, who heads Google's Apps for Education team.

I hope he is right.

Melbourne Business School Merger

In the wake of an internal restructure this week, The Australian is reporting today that a merger between Melbourne Business School and the University of Melbourne may be imminent with the University likely to vote on a proposal this week:

An in-principle agreement will be put to the university's council on Monday after about three years of talks between university vice-chancellor Glyn Davis and MBS chairman and former BHP boss Ron McNeilly.

As a student and staff member of Melbourne Business School, I have very mixed feelings about any potential merger and I've very unsure how it will affect both the security of my job and the quality of my education. My sense is that the merger is being tailored to satisfy the faculty, without much regard to the professional staff. This is somewhat understandable, as faculty are really the "core" employees of a University.

However, my team at MBS has made a substantial investment in Information Technology over the past year that shouldn't be overlooked and certainly should not be subsumed by what Melburne Uni has. It is my belief that like faculty, information technology can effect the quality of learning, as well as support fundraising and marketing activities that faculty simply cannot.

I'm hoping that professional staff are well consulted and that management understand the potential synergies of merging professional staff, and also the amazing complexity, politically and technologically, or unifying or discarding IT systems.

I'll have more to say on this as more details are released to the public domain.

Alumni Donations

I am trying so hard to find the text of a column I read in Time magazine about 5 years ago. It really stuck with me. I'm pretty sure it's written by Joel Stein. Joel is talking about the ridiculous amount of money he paid for a Stanford education and the subsequent requests for alumni donations. 

I'll paraphrase about the fictional letter he received from Gillette, the fine makers of the Mach 3 razor: "Mr Stein, I understand you enjoyed our Mach 3, which offers you a very close and comfortable shave. Would you consider giving a small donation to Gillette?"  He then goes on to lament the expensive "art" around the $30,000-a-year tuition Stanford campus which he notes is a private institution.

If anyone knows where I can find the original text of this column, could you let me know in the comments?

Update: I found it.