ECOS 2201 Economics of Competition and Strategy
Suraj Prasad
Semester 2, 2025
Assignment
1 Details
The main objective of this assignment is to get you to apply concepts learnt in the
class to real world problems. In terms of allocating time, you should set aside about
2 hours a week to work on the assignment. The assignment (typed with 11 point font
and double spacing) has to be submitted on Canvas through Turnitin by midnight
Nov 2, 2025 (this is the end of Week 12 – more details on the link and how to submit
the assignment will be provided closer to the date).
2 Topic
Select a job that you have worked in or a job that you find particularly interesting
(in case you have never worked in a job here is a list of occupations you can browse
through).
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
1. Describe a typical workday in the job. Specify any incentive conflicts that arise
on the job by using a model (or a similar frameowrk) to what we did in class.
2. Explain whether monetary incentives can correct the incentive problem studied.
Are there other instruments (besides money) to correct the incentive problem?
You must discuss at least one other instrument. In words, how would you
model this?
3. What are the costs and benefits of using the instrument you suggest?
4. Based on your analysis, what advice would you give to a manager trying to
motivate a worker in the job setting you consider?
3 Length
The assignment should be less than 2 pages, double spaced, 11 point. You can use
an additional page for references. font.
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4 Grading
The assignment counts for 15 percent of your overall grade in this unit. I will use
three criteria for the grading.
• How “creative” your assignment is – for instance, how novel your incentive
insrument is and how you think about modeling it.
• How logical your argument is and the insights that your model can deliver.
You want your model to strike a balance between including (the most) relevant
details and being concise. This can be difficult.
• The clarity of your writing and arguments. Using a simple graph to capture
some of your main ideas could help with this.
5 AI
I am fine with you using AI to generate some ideas for your assignment (for example,
the free version of Chat GPT). If you do, you will need to write a short paragraph
on how you used the program and the ideas that you drew from it. In general, the
output on these programs is quite generic and not what I am looking for in an ideal
assignment.
6 References
Make sure that you reference your work if you draw on other sources.
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