Author Archives: jmonaghan

Recently, I was listening to the podcast “This American Life.”  You have probably heard about it, it’s a podcast given by Ira Glass where he tells someone’s story.  The particular one I was listening to was a unique one. it was called “Not Fair!” and its focus was on referees.  No one likes referees, at one point in your life they probably made a call in a sport you cared about against a team you cared about.  Even if you have never watched sports in your life, you probably are aware of peoples’ distaste for referees.  Recently, hatred for refs Continue reading Social Media Enabling Loss Aversion→

Economics and computer science overlap in surprising frequency.  Most of it is computational; calculating equilibrium, maximizing profit, etc.  Computer science has even integrated into economics through R. Comp sci can make things easier and there’s a wide range of economic applications.  Recently I observed one of these applications. It began when I was studying for my computer science test There was a subject on this test called recursion.  In practice recursion is very difficult, and as any students know, just because you take a test on it, doesn’t mean you understand it. While the application can be difficult, the concept Continue reading Dynamic Stability and Recursion→

The choice to vote can be seen as a voluntary contribution mechanism.  This isn’t a perfect perspective, but it hold the basic concept. The payoff would be amount of democracy or a leader that accurately depicts their representatives.  From this perspective our voting system could be considered very successful. Convincing a little less than half a nation to contribute to a VCM game is impressive. clarification: the nash equilibrium isn’t zero.  As less and less people vote the more your vote matters, eventually surpassing the cost of going out and voting. Why do so many people vote?  In the recent Continue reading The Paradox of Voting (part 1)→