Microeconomics 2011 Chapter 5 微观经济 教学课件.ppt

* * * * * * * * * You could spend the rest of the course talking about and discussing equity, fairness, or distributive justice as it is sometimes called. This material is not standard and you’ll be hard pressed to find it in any other principles text. It is included here because students are very curious about what is fair. And the news media writes and talks of little else when it discusses economic issues. Some years ago, Jim Tobin told Michael Parkin a nice test of whether a person is a liberal or a conservative. It also generates a good classroom discussion. Here’s how it goes. Give the students the following scenario and question: You are at an oasis in a large desert and you have some ice cream in an unmovable refrigerator. (Ice cream is the only food available). The people in the next oasis some miles away have no ice cream (and no other food) and are too old and infirm to travel. You have plenty of ice cream and you can transport it to the next oasis, but on the journey, some of it will melt. Now the question: How much of the ice cream would have to survive the journey for it to be worth transporting to the next oasis? Your students will not agree. The most liberal would transport if only the smallest percentage survived the journey. The most conservative would want a large proportion to survive before undertaking the redistribution. You can point out that different people choose different points on the big tradeoff. * * * * * Some years ago, Jim Tobin told Michael Parkin a nice test of whether a person is a liberal or a conservative. It also generates a good classroom discussion. Here’s how it goes. Give the students the following scenario and question: You are at an oasis in a large desert and you have some ice cream in an unmovable refrigerator. (Ice cream is the only food available). The people in the next oasis some miles away have no ice cream (and no other food) and are too old and infirm to travel. You have plenty of ice cream and you can transport