But back at the coal face -
Rail yards were a very important and expensive part of a ~1906 railroad's infrastructure - both to build, and to operate. And the efficiency differences between a well-designed and poorly-designed yard were huge. A prospective RR manager who can't quickly map out a good rail yard is someone who simply does not understand the at-scale operation of a railroad.
Similarly, waybills were the core document for moving individual customer's loads around on an RR. If (fake name) EconoAir's manager at your local airport did not understand Flight Plans well enough to quickly draw one up - would you want to own EconoAir's stock, or fly on their airplanes?
So since universities obviously do not focus on teaching that material, do you suppose that people in positions of authority at airlines don't understand flight plans?
Universities are institutions of higher learning, you can acquire the industry-specific mundane details on the job.
If you used Scheme in your CS program, you can figure out whatever tech stack your company is using. It's really not any different.
https://www.vaughn.edu/degrees-programs/bachelors-degrees/ai...
like, that selling light bulbs that expire in weeks is better for the supply curve.
or presumes that workers might never beat the prisoners dilemma and the central banks will always keep the correct unemployment rate.
or that consumers will never make any informed purchase and will always drive process to bottom for a good demand curve.
etc.
the thing is, it works very well, because the system accepted that dogma just like feudalism accepted looks were ordained from god, despite having to hold an army to keep god's word... so the models work, but you must accept the whole theology, which is never mentioned in any level of economics (well, it's briefly mentioned as tools in development economy)
- “presumes that workers might never beat the prisoners dilemma” - that has nothing to do with demand curves. I have no idea what you are talking about.
- “[presumes??] that consumers will never make any informed purchase” - nothing of the sort is true.
- “selling light bulbs that expire in weeks is better for the supply curve.” What??
I think at the time this represented key aspect of the business that someone managing it should know about. Nowadays things may be too diverse and complex for people to learn, or be taught such specifics in college, but people taking senior positions in any companies still do a much better job if they know how the business works from the bottom up.
1. Harvard was aiming their students to jump straight into middle management (as it does today). 2. No ERP. No Excel spreadsheets. Mechanical calculation if you're lucky. Little communication if you're the manager in a small office. Lots of paper.
Just like today, middle managers need to know how to make business decisions quickly and correctly. This is how you get gains at the margin.
To be honest "draw a map of a rail yard" or "write up a waybill" does not seem like the kind of exam material college students should be engaging in in 2024. The standard is higher now, a lot of the material more difficult and the questions have changed. The material being tested on that exam looks like middle-high school in parts?
In an _intro_ economics class I'd like students to understand what we (think we) know about supply and demand and apply it to relevant public policy issues - housing supply, taxation of vices, etc. I'd like them to discuss policy trade offs.
"Railroad economics" was presumably an elective, where the standards now would be even higher than in my intro class.