Gabriel’s scarcity rent – it’s management stupid!

I’ve heard many things from business school students the wonderful experiences they had at class with some teacher, one that gives you the best show in town. He is charming, extrovert, he looks at people’s eyes, he usually begins with a sentence like “I’m just going to explain you three simple ideas”.And he delivers. At certain moments he’ll even be flamboyant, but not too much. And he will never bore you. He *did* explain the three simple things. And even five. People will come out of the class convinced they have learned a lot, something practical, discovered a new world and gone deeper in the well of knowledge.

People will be so excited about their experience, they’ll even praise him in a post. Or have his name in Twitter. (Do you know what twitter is? One of the most obnoxious tools ever created)

It’s not i do not value this kind of teaching, on the contrary, expressing yourself well is a key to success, but let’s not forget the content. Teachers could be less entertaining, but even more effective.

by David Levine, New York Review of books

I thought of all this while reading a review from Robert Solow about the newly released book about Schumpeter. I wrote about him some days ago. Solow was privileged to attend to Schumpeter’s classes, but, at the same time didn’t learn much there. He was an easy grader and, in his history of economical thought, never managed to go further than Adam Smith.

Solow complains that this fact is simply is omitted at the book, where he is described as enthusiastic about his teaching. The article is here.

Let’s not be confused, Schumpeter was a genius anyway. But sometimes you just need to understand a hefty demonstration of the inverse relationship between the price risk and the reinvestment risk. Not so fun, maybe even of no use, but it will develop your analytical capabilities.