From: ECON-GRAD-L [mailto:XXXXXXXXX] On Behalf Of Ashley Boggs
Sent: Wednesday, 18 July 2007 2:05 a.m.
To: [email protected]
Subject: A New Regime for ICES Students
Importance: High

Dear ICES Students:

While this letter is for those economics PH. D. students who consider themselves part of the ICES program, it is being sent to all students on this list server because I have no way to identify those students until they advance to candidacy. All ICES faculty except Professors Houser and McCabe will be leaving GMU for Chapman University in Orange, California. The only unsettled question at this writing is whether they will leave next month or next year. Which departure date they choose, however, has no substantive impact on the contents of this letter.

So if you are an ICES student who has not yet advanced to candidacy, you need to read this letter. And even if you have advanced to candidacy, you should also read on because you can be affected by these changes as well. Indeed, I will divide the remainder of this letter into two categories that relate to those two sets of students.

NOT YET ADVANCED TO CANDIDACY

Ph. D. students are required to pass two field exams in addition to micro and macro exams before advancing to candidacy (and also to accumulate 48 hours of course work and have your dissertation proposal accepted by your dissertation committee). For students who have chosen to work within the ICES program, the requirement of field exams as been abolished because participation in the ICES program involves an extensive and intensive set of activities beyond the 48 hours of course work that serves in lieu of field exams.

Starting now, this abolition is abolished. From this point on, all Ph.D. students will have to pass the requirement of two field exams before advancing to candidacy. Starting January 2008, we will add experimental to our list of field exams, with Professors Houser and McCabe serving on the committee (and with a third faculty member to be named later).

Those ICES students who entered GMU in August 2006 are clearly subject to this new rule, as you are now only at the stage where you are now about to take the micro and macro exams.

ICES students who entered prior to August 2006 but who have not yet advanced to candidacy are in a different, more compromised position, and it is you who are the prime intended recipients of this letter. Only I don&#8217-t know who you are, so you must identify yourselves to me if you want to file for an exception to this change in rules.

Here is the deal: if you want to be exempt from the new requirement of two field exams (one of which would, presumably, be experimental), you must write me to this effect by 1300 on Friday 24 August 2007. If I do not have your request for exemption in hand by that time, you automatically will be subject to the requirement of two field exams.

If you do request an exemption, I will adjudicate your request. Let me note briefly the principles I will follow in that adjudication. The prime issue I will look at is whether you are almost ready to advance to candidacy. You must present me with evidence and testimony to this effect- in some fashion you must show me that you are well along in the process of forming a committee, and are not just thinking about doing so.

Another issue arises at this point, but it pertains as well to those ICES students who have already advanced to candidacy, so I will cover that issue in the next section of this letter. So please read on.

ALREADY ADVANCED TO CANDIDACY

GMU policy states clearly that all three members of dissertation committees must be full-time GMU faculty members at the time the dissertation is defended. For some of you, the precise character of your futures depend on just when the ICES faculty leave GMU. The principles in play, however, are invariant to that departure date.

If you can defend your dissertation before those faculty leave, you are done regardless of when they leave. But if they leave before you are able to finish, you will have to reconstitute your committees. At this point, expectation and anticipation enters the picture. If you truly expect to finish before they leave, it&#8217-s smart to stay on your current heading. If not, you will have to change your heading through re-constituting your committee, and doing that sooner rather than later will surely contribute to your timely completion.

As for those students who have not yet advanced to candidacy, some of you might be in the position of being almost ready to do so, and to do so with those faculty who will be departing. If they don&#8217-t depart until 2008 and if you and they conclude that you can finish before their departure, you should continue with your current plans and I will grant your request for exemption from the field exam requirements.

SUMMARIZING AND MOVING ON

I realize this is a terribly long letter, and is irrelevant to nearly all of you as well. For this imposition I apologize, but I know of no other way to deal with this situation. Let me summarize: (1) we will start offering fields in experimental in place of the ICES program- (2) all students are now subject to the requirement of two field exams before advancing to candidacy- (3) ICES students who have not yet advanced to candidacy can petition me for exemption by demonstrating both that their committee formation is at hand and that everyone involved is convinced that the dissertation will be defended before the
departure of the ICES faculty.

By way of one final remark while I am thinking of it, let me also say that I subject all requests for exceptions, exemptions, appeals, and the like to rigorous scrutiny. The simple economics of this situation is that I bear the costs of these actions, and in two respects: (1) there are supporting documents I must prepare at the time and (2) there is even more work I must bear in the form of even more documentation if you don&#8217-t conform to the initial promises.

Doing the latter is something I dislike especially intensely, and to avoid having to do this is the reason I apply rigorous scrutiny to all such cases in the first place. If I carry forward your case to higher authorities, it will only be because you have convinced me that I will never be asked to repeat that action. Therefore, do not presume that I will automatically support your petitions, for I will not do so unless you present me with compelling reason to believe that I will not again have to have such matters cross my desk.

Yours Sincerely, REW

Richard E. Wagner
Department of Economics, 3G4
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
Phone: 703-993-1132
Fax 703-993-1133
Home page: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rwagner

Previous: NOBEL LAUREATE VERNON SMITH LEAVES ROBIN HANSON’S GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY TO GO WORKING FOR TOM W. BELL’S CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY.

NEXT: Deep Throat on the George Mason University exodus to Chapman University.

NEXT: OFFICIAL: NOBEL LAUREATE VERNON SMITH DECAMPS FOR WEST COAST&#8217-S CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY.

NEXT: The latest about the departing of Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith from George Mason University to Chapman University

#1. David Porter is leaving as of this fall, Stephen Rassenti and Bart Wilson leaving in a year. Kevin McCabe, Daniel Houser and Mark Olson are staying at GMU.

#2. GMU still wants to be able to claim Vernon Smith&#8217-s name, and it could well be that he will remain with some affiliation at George Mason University.

#3. The ICES folks have had a tenuous relationship at best with many members of the economics faculty (Robin Hanson being the most prominent exception) and similarly shaky relations with other folks elsewhere in the university. [Note: About half the ICES crew strongly preferred to work at the Arlington campus, several miles from the main (more distant in the suburbs) Fairfax campus, where most of the department is housed.]

#4. Daniele Struppa [a male professor] was Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at GMU when ICES arrived. Daniele Struppa, it seems, always did his best to make good on the university&#8217-s side of the deal that brought ICES to GMU. Daniele Struppa being at Chapman University, and now Chancellor, no wonder these ICES guys are so comfortable heading off to suburban L.A.

#5. In any case, within 24 hours or so of Wagner&#8217-s email to students, the ICES folks had heard from people at companies, federal agencies, etc., whom they were working, all calling to say &#8220-so, I hear you are leaving&#8221-. The ICES folks had heard from friends/associates in Europe within a day or so asking for news about what is up. In effect, Wagner&#8217-s (premature) email to students became the press release announcing the moves (even if all the details were not yet arranged).

&#8212-

NOTE: &#8220-ICES&#8221- as an entity was first established at GMU, but the six core faculty (Smith, Rassenti, Porter, McCabe, Houser, and Wilson) all arrived as a group from the University of Arizona, where they had all worked at the Economic Science Lab (which Smith led).

&#8212-

UPDATE: Tom W. Bell&#8230-

Chapman is in Orange County–not “suburban L.A.”

&#8212-

Previous: All GMU’s ICES faculty except Houser and McCabe are leaving to join Chapman University. + NOBEL LAUREATE VERNON SMITH LEAVES ROBIN HANSON’S GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY TO GO WORKING FOR TOM W. BELL’S CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY.

NEXT: OFFICIAL: NOBEL LAUREATE VERNON SMITH DECAMPS FOR WEST COAST&#8217-S CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY.

NEXT: The latest about the departing of Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith from George Mason University to Chapman University

This is the fourth month the simExchange video game prediction market has traded contracts on the NPD Group&#8217-s monthly sales data. This month, the simExchange expanded its contract offerings to include 10 software SKUs.

PS3 sales came in line with market expectations at 98,500 units. The simExchange market expected 98,400 units to be sold in the month of June. Sales of Nintendo DS, Sony&#8217-s PSP, and Microsoft&#8217-s Xbox 360 exceeded the market&#8217-s expectations while Nintendo&#8217-s Wii underperformed expectations. Traders likely expected a larger supply of Wii units to be shipped into the US than Nintendo was capable. The PSP&#8217-s price cut proved to be a stronger catalyst for sales than the market anticipated.

The PS3 results were the least surprising to the market (off -0.1%), while the Wii results were the most surprising to the market (off +13.62%). The PS3 futures contract was the most heavily traded futures contract on the simExchange with a total volume of 2,511,424 contracts traded. The Wii futures contract was traded for a total volume of 790,629 contracts.

Mario Party 8 lead the pack of software SKUs tracked by the simExchange, beating expectations. Microsoft&#8217-s Forza Motorsport 2 came in second, inline with expectations. Electronic Arts&#8217- Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix significantly underperformed market expectations.

The following tables compare market expectations on the simExchange and actual results as reported by the NPD Group. Expectations by leading analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan are also presented for comparison purposes.

US Hardware tracked by the simExchange in June 2007

US Software tracked by the simExchange in June 2007
(Not the Top 10 software SKUs of June 2007)

How exactly does this work?

Gamers and developers sign up on the simExchange for a free trading account. Using virtual currency called DKP, players buy virtual futures contracts that are under-predicting sales and short sell
futures that are over-predicting sales. This concept is widely known as &#8220-the Wisdom of the Crowd&#8221- and this system is known as a &#8220-prediction market.&#8221-

About the predictions

Predictions on the simExchange should become more accurate over time as (1) the diversity of the pool of traders increases and as (2) more accurate players are rewarded with more virtual currency for their accuracy (thereby enabling them to form more predictions) and less accurate players lose virtual currency (thereby discounting their ability to form more predictions). Check out the simExchange&#8217-s results in May, April, and March.

Copyright and reprinting

The simExchange, LLC retains the right to the content of this article but permits the reprinting of this article with proper credit to the simExchange. Sales data published here includes data disclosed with permission by the NPD Group exclusively for the purpose of settling futures contracts on the simExchange.

This article was cross posted from NPD June sales data reviewed on The simExchange Official Blog.

* NPD Group sales data
** The simExchange trading data
*** Gamasutra, July 16, 2007