Tyler Cowen's Make Him Fight Dragons Applied

Tyler Cowen's Make Him Fight Dragons Applied

OK, I have been meaning to write (I mean "right") this for a long time. I had a talk with an acquaintance - I mean, friend - of mine and she had told me about her dream man. 

I say "dream man" advisedly; after all, a dream isn't real, and the man she was telling me about wasn't real at all.

Now I had put the conversation behind me (it was a fortnight ago!) and was going about my normal, everyday life when I read Tyler Cowen's "Discover Your Inner Economist". Well, of course, I read economics books - I have an Economics degree, remember? 

The thing is that you might wonder what a talk with a friend about her dream man and Tyler Cowen's book have in common. 

The key thing is signalling.

Although some may argue that economists have absolutely no right to go around poking their noses in affairs of the heart and relationships, Cowen rightly points out that it is all a matter of signalling. People are constantly signalling to each other and in the case of dating it is particularly and obviously, well, obvious.

Cowen calls the particular approach of advertising clearly and specifically the qualities that a woman wants in a man the "Make Him Fight Dragons" approach. This is a direct kind of signalling rather than the more indirect and surreptitious kind of signalling that we are used to in daily life. Basically, the woman tells her potential suitors all her requirements and then the men self-select. In other words, the men can see what kind of man she wants, and then they have to decide if they can take such a huge "dose" (I plagiarise here) of her.

Now, what's that got to do with my friend? She goes around telling everybody about her dream guy she wants to marry. I recorded down the qualities because I was flabbergasted - I mean wonderfully amazed - at her specificity. 

This is one girl who appears to know what she wants (although I am pretty sure she doesn't really know what she wants).

MLQH's dream man:

1. He must share her goals and beliefs.

2. He must be of the same religion (she is Pentecostalian/"rabid Protestantish"/ she's from New Creation Church).

3. He must be rich or have the potential to become incredibly wealthy.

4. He cannot have had girlfriends before.

5. He must be a virgin.

6. He cannot be shorter than her (and my friend in question is at least 1.64m)

7. He cannot criticise her.

8. He must be absolutely honest with her.

9. He must drive.

10. He cannot be younger but also cannot be more than 5 years older.

11. He doesn't smoke.

12. He must be self made (i.e. not reliant on parents or inheritance).

13. He isn't insecure or clingy.

14. He must be able to interact with her professors (and she is going to be a PhD holder in the nursing and medical care profession!!!).

15. He must be educated to at least a first degree level.

16. He must be of the same wavelength as her.

17. He must wine and dine her and pay for all dates.

18. Above all, he must pay for their matrimonial home and all their expenses when married.

19. All these he does willingly.

Now, I am a really sporting man and would like to wager on this one. 

The man here doesn't exist - my friend seems to have taken Cowen's idea of Making Him Fight Dragons to the extreme.

Let us assume as a simplifying assumption that in the general world population, each of the above conditions has a 50% probability, or 0.5. You'd agree with me that this is merely a simplifying condition as not half of all men smoke, and certainly less than 50% of the men in the world have at least a first degree, not 50% of all the men on earth are wealthy, and so on and so forth. Also, as a specific case, it is highly unrealistic that half the men in the world are between 0 and 5 years older than my friend. Thus, this simplifying assumption serves as a maximum, upper bound of how many men worldwide are likely to fulfil her conditions.

Let us also further assume that the dream man, the inamorato, the ideal man is willing to marry her with a 50% probability and that he is neither gay, nor bisexual, nor a celibate priest, nor married already, nor someone who does not want to marry. Two more conditions (he "wants her", and he is "eligible"), each with a 0.5 chance as per my earlier assumption.

OK, since these conditions must hold simultaneously, this means that the probability of finding this dream man (upper bound) is: 0.5 to the power of 21, which works out to be 0.000000476. The world population is currently about 6.6 billion, and let's just assume that half of them are men - so that makes 3.3 billion men (but bear in mind that some of them are still children and some of them are geriatrics). This makes her scope 1573 possible men! If the probability drops to 0.4 for each condition, her scope drops to 14 men. If it drops to 0.3 for each condition, there are 0 men. I really don't fancy her chances.

However, Cowen does suggest another method, called the Honey Trap method. Aha, this one seems more promising. The method goes something like this: attract as many men as possible and interview, review and select those that seem nice, fit your qualities, etc, etc. The problem with the Fighting Dragons method is that if the conditions are too stringent, it puts off possible eligible knights who conclude that it is too difficult to rescue the damsel; they'd rather go for the Honey Trap and take their chances against other guys instead. Maybe my friend should try that.

Interesting material. Anyways, finally - I've got it off my chest.

PS If you're interested in dating my friend, do be sure that you fulfil all her criteria and that you are either in palliative care, medicine or some nursing research field. And she is one rough, tough cookie!

Anything that interests me!

How to Get First Class Honours in Economics at NUS

How to Get First Class Honours in Economics at the National University of Singapore (NUS)

I noticed that this is the most popular post on my blog, with thousands of views each year. I've made some edits to this post for language, clarity, and context on 24 April 2020. I've also added bonus material to enhance the post. Hopefully, this keeps this article relevant and useful. 

I am delighted that I received my First Class Honours [equivalent to obtaining Honours (Highest Distinction) in today's context] and can finally graduate from NUS. 

My education has been an enriching experience for me in terms of meeting many interesting people, going on student exchange, and all the things that I have learnt there - German, economics, history, USP modules, and relationships. So, it is time to give back and share some pointers on how to get First Class or Highest Distinction in Economics. 

How does one get a First Class Honours in Economics at NUS?

I think no one can say definitively how to get a First Class or Highest Distinction in any discipline, let alone one as difficult as Economics. 

But I can share some strategies or experiences, and those can maybe inspire or help you achieve your goal. 

1. You have to be willing to work long and hard. I mean really long hours and hard work. Long hours: I spent between five to twelve hours in the Central Library every day - on top of lectures and tutorials. Hard work: for instance, for Econometrics - a bane of existence for most undergraduates unless they're math majors - I did the entire textbook... at least thrice. 

In any case, the harder something is, the more valuable it is. In a similar vein, the harder it is to get First Class or Highest Distinction, the more valuable the final result. 

2. You need to get help for mathematics and statistics. Unless you're a math major or a stats major, it is very likely that you're in the same position as I was - you know some math and some stats, but you can't seem to prove the Stolper-Samuelson theorem or Rybczynski theorem. 

I mean, even though I did the module and once knew how to do to the Rybczynski theorem by heart, it was thanks to getting good help from my trusty friend, Mr Quek. He helped me out also for Econometrics 2 - a killer module. Get help from real mathematicians or real statisticians. They can help us. 

I have to point out that getting prepared for university economics by doing mathematical economics is useful, but insufficient. University economics is a lot harder than it seems, unless you are once again a math or stats major. 

Taking this to a broader point, you have to will yourself to do better in maths and stats. Brush up on whatever fundamentals you had earlier, and commit to doing as much math and stats as you can stomach. It has worked for me, and will likely work for you too. 

(There's a related point here, on econometrics. The vast majority of human beings do not find econometrics easy to do. Only a certain rare breed breeze through econometrics, or can understand the beauty of vectors. I was not one of them. But through hard work, paying a lot of attention to my weaknesses, and hours in the library, I managed to overcome not one, but two, econometrics modules and obtained good grades for them. This just goes to show you that it is possible if you try. Don't give up on econometrics just yet.)

3. You need to get friends. This is related to point 2, but point 2 is about the importance of mathematics and statistics and how your A level math or whatever isn't going to give you any advantage. 

Friends on the other hand... help you with tutorials, help you with lectures, lend you materials, give you heads-up... what else can I say? Get friends who are good at economics! Quod erat demonstrandum. 

Taking this to a broader point, you'll come to realise that studying is not entirely a solitary event. If you are able to have a group of friends who can inspire you, help you, and even better still, challenge you, you will learn and grow. Think of it in a positive way. 

4. You need to get a good supervisor, and start working early on your thesis. 

This is because in NUS, when I was a student there, one needed to get an A- or better for the thesis to get First Class Honours, on top of a sterling CAP of above 4.5. 

Nowadays, I understand things are different. 

But it would not hurt to get a good supervisor, who cares about you and your grades, and who wants to help you succeed. I have been blessed to have had a supervisor who cared for me and wanted me to do well. I have also been blessed that two of my ISM Professors (Independent Study Modules) helped me hone my research skills with their care, concern, and content. It just goes to show that it makes a lot of sense to search for a good supervisor early. 

In a similar vein, if you start working hard on your thesis earlier, and get a head start on understanding what it is you are researching on and compiling your datasets, the race is half won. 

These are relatively self-evident arguments, so I won't explain further. 

Finding a good supervisor and a good thesis topic, fruitful for research, are all topics that can take up entire posts or even entire blogs!

5. You need some luck. If you're reading this post, I'll have to be really honest with you and say that luck plays a small but significant role. 

As the years go by, and I look back upon my academic achievements, I can honestly say that it pays to be lucky. So perhaps, pray hard for luck. 

Not everything is due to you. We cannot know everything. Be intellectually humble. 

It was luck that I found a substitute topic for my behavioural economics thesis on reference points.

It was luck that when I ran econometric models, they turned out well after all and I found loss aversion, the result that I was looking for.

It was also luck that despite me not being able to solve the mathematical problems inherent in my research methodology, I still got a First Class as the examiners were willing to see beyond the mathematics. It was a challenging yet interesting topic, after all. It was a hard fought battle but luck was on my side.

I have to mention this: I can't find the site, but there was once a girl called Audrey (Lin? I believe) who wrote about her getting First Class Honours at NUS as well. She had a challenging last semester, doing all sorts of hard modules on top of the thesis, and then eventually she got her degree. She seemed to have a harder time than me (I completed the USP in Year 4 Sem 1.) 

However, she attributed it to God helping her (in addition to thanking her family). I think that was humble and correct of her. She is absolutely right. When it comes to studying and research, hard work is important, but luck plays a significant role.

Anyways, I've to conclude now. 

Once again, thank you to all my friends and your kind support! 

If you're an undergraduate at NUS seeking that elusive First Class (Highest Distinction) at NUS, good luck to you and do keep my advice in mind. 

We "old birds" know how hard it is, and respect you if you're willing to give your degree your best shot. Consider it a tournament. Consider the degree valuable. After all, I myself did enjoy my research before getting my honours. 

And best of luck! 

Anything that interests me!

Anything that interests me - Behavioural Economics

Anything that interests me - Behavioural Economics

I am back! 

It's been a long four years of education here and I'm about to graduate and leave university. 

On Wednesday, I even went down to sign the contract with my employer about the date I shall start work. 

So for the moment it looks like my formal education is almost over, unless of course I manage to get the Master's scholarship, in which case, my formal education will be over next year in 2011 instead. 

In any case, I decided to let this post be a reflection of what I've learnt in behavioural economics, one very interesting and controversial subfield in Economics.

Let's try a few isolated points that I find interesting. 

People don't integrate their assets, but rather use different mental accounting rules to make decisions on gambles and their money. Isn't that curious?

It's curious because most people would say "duh", but economists think that you shouldn't bother about various mental accounts, since it's the total sum of wealth (the whole thing) that you should be concerned with. 

Also, most people think differently from economists about the topic of inflation. Isn't that curious?

It's curious because economists (especially Lucas, who came up with the Misperceptions Model) believe that people do know the models that economists use. 

However, in real life, people don't think the same way as economists do. In fact, most of the time, in real life people behave rather differently from the way traditional economists think they should behave. The key point, as my Professor used to say, was that the deviation is constant or measurable. In other words, they should deviate from traditional or classical economics in a predictable way.  

Next, people suffer from "money illusion" - they tend to, broadly, see nominal increases as very important when they should be bothering about real increases. Isn't that curious?

It's curious because the same people can work out that inflation reduces what they can actually buy with a given sum of money. 

However, the same people are overjoyed when their income rises less than inflation does. Consider this example:

Inflation 10%

Wage increase 10%

Real increase 0% (because the wage increase just offsets inflation)

Yet it turns out that people would be happier in the above case relative to the next case:

Inflation 2%

Wage increase 3%

Real increase 1% (because the wage increase is more than the inflation)

The list goes on and on. So bear with me for two more examples.

People procrastinate. Isn't that curious?

It's curious because it means that people are not time consistent and they are not maximising their utility... or is it? 

The thing is that the present moment has a saliency that traditional standard economics ignores. 

Self 1 of a person wishes to do his homework at period 2, but when period 2 comes, it now becomes the present. Again, he wishes to postpone doing the homework till period 3, and so on. (Interesting stuff - but simplified to fit inside this academic blog.)

I think the best part about the course that struck me was the part on happiness.

There's a hedonic treadmill, and there's a satisfaction treadmill. Treadmill effects are basically effects that wear off, much like a treadmill that keeps going backwards as you are running forwards. You keep on running, but you don't really get anywhere - precisely because it's a treadmill.

A hedonic treadmill means that people don't seem to get any happier because they adapt to happiness levels. As they get richer, they don't get any happier because now it takes much more leisure or things or enjoyment to make them happier. They adapt and get used to the better lifestyle. That's a hedonic treadmill.

On the other hand, a satisfaction treadmill implies that people don't seem to get any happier because of changing aspirations. That means that as people get richer, their aspirations change. What used to make them happy is not enough now. You can see that the reverse is also true. The satisfaction treadmill also suggests that as people break their limbs or become incredibly poor, their aspiration levels are lowered, and hence they don't need as much to make them happy when they're paralysed or poor. Some kind of aspirational or goal change occurs.

Interesting stuff eh?

An interesting, and related, idea is that happiness is found in the moment, yet happiness can also be memory-based and remembered.

Here is where behavioural economics seems akin to philosophy.

Do we remember - mind the pun - to fully immerse ourselves in the moment and feel happy when we are on holiday, or do we keep on taking pictures to reminisce upon our holiday later?

Are we busy enjoying the moment when we savour food, or are we constantly thinking of how happy we were eating that burger yesterday or how happy we are going to be eating that burger later?

Cool stuff. 

Now I get back to studying for my degree.

Anything that interests me! :)