PHDBA279S Presentation Institutions

This page details the agreed upon institution(s) for the presentation order for PHDBA279S for PhD BPP Students.

History

The presentation order was original agreed with the professor in charge of the seminar for that term in the first session of the term. There was a loose heirarchy, or seniority, that was used. Typically the slots would be listed and the professor would place the sixth years into slots, then the fifth years, and so forth downwards. However, the sixth years were not gauranteed the best slots (which were usually the last ones); social optimality considerations were factored (with differing degrees of success) into each professors guidance.

Following a trial of a wiki for BPP students, we then attempted to negotiate amongst ourselves for slots, without faculty guidance, using a strict seniority system between years and a first-come-first-served system within years. The result was then presented to the faculty member running the seminar. This lead to near perfect sorting down the years, with the higher years taking the last slots (which are generally preferable), and the early years being forced into the early slots. For various reasons this was considered to be not socially optimal.

In an attempt to resolve this various pitches were made by students, including revisions to the seniority ordering. Finally an impasse was reached, and a seminar slot with Steve Tadelis was used to create a new institution.

The Institution

As of the Fall term of 2011, we will use the following institution to schedule our seminar.

• There is a strict seniority of years in choosing slots, but (first) choices are constrained to the term-quarters or term-halves below.
• Within years the first-come-first-served system will be used.
• Once initial choices have been made, students may choose empty slots outside of their designated blocks by seniority.
• Once a first schedule is complete Pareto improving trading (by consent of both trading parties, with or without side payments) are allowed.

Each year is constrained to a first choice as follows (note that the dates of the term-quarters are for guidance only), and seniority is left to right:

          -------------------------  Sept 1st
          |    Job    |           |
          |  Market   |           |
    F     |Candidates |   Third   |
    A     -   then    -   Years   -  Sept 24th
    L     |   Fifth   |           |
    L     |  /Sixth   |           |
          |   Years   |           |
          -------------------------  Oct 21st
          |                       |
    T     |     Fourth Years      |
    E     |                       |
    R     -------------------------  Nov 14th 
    M     |                       |
          |     Second Years      |
          |                       |
          -------------------------  Dec 10th
          ||||||||||||||||||||||||| 
          -------------------------  Jan 20th
          |           |           |
    S     |           |           |
    P     |   Fifth   |  Fourth   |
    R     -  /Sixth   -   Years   -  Feb 10th
    I     |   Years   |  (post    |
    N     |           |   orals)  |
    G     |           |           |
          -------------------------  Mar 10th
          |           |           |
    T     |   Orals   |           |
    E     |   Takers  |  Second   |
    R     -    and    -   Years   -  Apr 7th
    M     |   Third   |           |
          |   Years   |           |
          |           |           |
          -------------------------  May 1st

Further more there are several additional norms:

• Second year students present together on one day (perhaps two days in years with four students in the intake) in the fall.
• Fourth years do not present the week of the alumni conference.