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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the critical mass provide for the individual?

2. How does Schelling explain blacks and whites being excluded from each other's churches?

3. What does Schelling ultimately say about a decision such as where to sit in a theater?

4. What does Schelling say about segregation?

5. What does Schelling say the measles story is an example of?

Short Essay Questions

1. What factors does Schelling say social scientists have to account for in models of human behavior?

2. How does Schelling define equilibrium?

3. What does Schelling mean when he says that certain behaviors have the character of mathematical "identical truisms"?

4. What experience got Schelling thinking about distribution?

5. What is the relationship between behaviors that can be modeled and free will, in Schelling's analysis?

6. How does Schelling say human systems differ from natural systems?

7. What example does Schelling use to illustrate an externality?

8. What is the commons model?

9. How is nuclear arms control a self-fulfilling prophecy, in Schelling's analysis/

10. What factors influence how effective a proposition is, in Schelling's analysis?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Can you speak accurately about the character of a people based on any particular model? Or can you only speak accurately about individuals whose motives you know and whose behavior you have discussed with them? Put another way, what are the limits of the kind of knowledge Schelling practices in Micromotives and Macrobehavior?

Essay Topic 2

Which models are most convincing in predicting outcomes, and which models are least convincing? Describe a case where a model lines up neatly with phenomena, and another case where a model fails to account for behavior.

Essay Topic 3

Where are economic models and their concept of equilibrium useful? What kinds of behaviors do they help social scientists to influence? What kinds of behaviors are not accounted for in these mathematical-economic models?

(see the answer keys)

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