I had an honor to serve as a reviewer of a competition. Teams had to recommend policies/strategies for firms or governments how to proceed in the current political economic environment facing China and the firm.
Below are my general comments on the performance of participants. I list them here for teams who may engage in similar competitions in the future.
1. A good report or presentation requires good arguments with supporting evidence. Charts and tables are common supporting evidence. We could have collected and included tons of charts and tables, but they alone do not make a good report. A good report should have a good analysis. The key is to use the charts and tables as evidence to support our arguments. If you present tons of charts and tables in your presentation, you can surely drown the readers but it is really the analysis the readers are looking forward to. When readers are overwhelmed with charts and tables, the readers may interpret that you have not done much analysis or you cannot even make a judgement on which charts and tables are more relevant to your analysis. People who can collect and present tons of charts and tables, they are good research assistants. They are not analyst.
2. Making policy recommendation is cheap. Please do keep in mind the simple cost and benefit analysis. When recommending a policy, benefits of the recommended policies are highlighted. Often not mentioned are the costs of such recommended policies. Without the discussion of costs, the recommendation appears biased. Do we still want to recommend the policy if the cost is larger than the benefit? Each recommended policy will require some commitment of resources. One relevant question is probably the priority of the recommended policies. That is, if the firm has resources to adopt one policy, which policy should they adopt?
3. A quick check of the usefulness of our recommended policy is to ask whether this recommended policy was available to the firm or the government before. If the firm or government could have adopted such policy before but had chosen not to adopt it, we need to understand its reasons of rejecting such policy before, and then why the recommended policy has become relevant now.
4. One way to establish the importance of our recommended policy is to conduct a scenario analysis. If nothing is done, we expect to obtain a profit of X. If policy A is adopted, we expect the profit will be Y, or an increase of Z%. Of course, if Z is close to zero, the recommended policy is deemed insignificant.
| 2020-11-04 | Yes, 1200+ personalized versions of the test paper! |
| 2020-02-18 | Let students focus on learning, teachers on teaching, and thus together achieve the intended learning outcomes. |
| 2020-02-10 | Online learning requires Discipline, DISCIpline, DISCIPLINE! |
| 2019-01-15 | Supposedly not difficult to get a B grade. |
| 2018-12-11 | This quality is more important than grades. |
| 2018-11-15 | Late dropping |
| 2018-11-15 | Unreliability of average SETL scores due to the high non-response rate |
| 2018-11-13 | Let go! |
| 2018-10-24 | No, please do not use my lecture time for your society's announcement. |
| 2018-09-26 | Scheduling an appointment |
| 2018-08-27 | None of my business |
| 2018-08-21 | Course evaluation bounds and response rate |
| 2018-08-09 | Be a responsible job applicant |
| 2018-02-10 | No calories browsing.... |
| 2018-01-24 | Would "uncertain" help your postgraduate study application? I would say, CERTAINLY NOT! |
| 2017-09-14 | When helping your friend is NOT HELPING YOUR FRIEND! |
| 2017-09-13 | My life as a student -- AGAIN |
| 2017-09-05 | You like easy grade, easy honor, easy graduation? |
| 2017-07-18 | My Facebook friends, please protect me just as I protect you. |
| 2017-07-12 | An internship |
| 2016-03-01 | You know me. But, do I know you? |
| 2015-12-17 | Why learning fails to happen despite the great design of the course and the great teacher? |
| 2015-10-20 | Can I trust you, my friend? |
| 2015-10-17 | If we have the second chance to "retake", failing or getting a low grade would not be so stressful. |
| 2015-09-18 | My first-hand experience on why learning is not taking place in lectures! |
| 2015-08-20 | Are you sure Econometrics is useless? |
| 2015-05-04 | Eating 100 bowls of rice in a day |
| 2015-01-31 | You say you love me. How can I tell whether you truly love me? |
| 2014-10-24 | I would be happy to write recommendations letter for your PhD or Master application if .... |
| 2014-10-23 | Master of Finance at MIT |
| 2014-10-06 | Are you sure what you saw was black? |
| 2014-03-05 | GOLDEN opportunity -- only to the hard-working students. |
| 2014-03-01 | What to do when your teacher's teaching style does not fit your learning style? |
| 2013-11-28 | A negative experience? Not completely. It can be made into a positive one! |
| 2013-11-27 | Many thanks for your appreciation of my teaching (II) |
| 2013-07-23 | My next stop is Barcelona! |
| 2013-06-01 | Her decision to pursue Master of Finance after her undergradaute study at HKU |
| 2012-11-10 | What should I do at HKU (activities versus study and many other things)? |
| 2011-09-12 | Coach, can you teach me to swim? |
| 2010-02-18 | How government policy with good intention can create frustration and political instability? |
| 2009-12-01 | Cherish our beloved ones who are still around us -- when we still can! |
| 2009-11-27 | Trust your teachers, but don't trust them blindly! |
| 2009-11-26 | You can give me a low score but please write some comments to help me improve my teaching. |
| 2009-08-26 | The similarity in health care service provision and fire fighting service provision |
| 2009-03-23 | Be brave. Visit your teachers. Ask them questions. Your teachers are a lot nicer than you think. |
| 2009-03-14 | How can you verify this is really you -- Dr. Ka-fu Wong of HKU? |
| 2009-03-09 | I dream to work in the business sector. Should I pursue a master degree before I join the private sector? |
| 2009-02-19 | Any economist can predict this... Can you? |
| 2008-12-21 | My students performed poorly in the final exam.
Help me help them.... please. |
| 2008-12-20 | Learning should not end with the final exam! |
| 2008-11-19 | Exchange in Europe can be very rewarding! |
| 2008-11-18 | UC Berkeley is my top choice for exchange! |
| 2008-11-02 | Why did we not have fresh mushrooms twenty years ago? |
| 2008-02-23 | Dialogue is preferred to monologue. |
| 2008-02-13 | If I were a single unemployed old man who lives on Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) |
| 2007-12-17 | Is forecasting a pure guessing game? |
| 2007-12-16 | I want zero emission of CO2! |
| 2007-11-30 | How would I choose universities for exchange? |
| 2007-11-28 | Excuse me. Can you write a recommendation letter for me? |
| 2007-11-12 | No pain, no gain! |
| 2007-09-14 | Teaching is to be enjoyed, and so is studying. Grades should only be secondary. |