Evil Inc.
Evil Inc. by Brad Guigar

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The Economics of Villainy (2 comments)
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The Economics of Villainy

in Comics by Guigar

Monday, June 22, 2009 - 12:00 AM


Leave it to an economist to ruin a perfectly good thing.

Henchperson Myrdinn passed along this link to a blog that discusses comics from the framework of economics. Perfect fit for Evil Inc, no?

In all seriousness, if my college Econ class woulda been taught like this, I mighta been a business major.

Writer ShadowBanker uses utility and game theory to explain why comic-book villains should never team up when trying to vanquish their chosen white-cape.

And, believe it or not, it's pretty easy to follow.

Unfortunately, that's where many of the best stories are, so let's be happy that Joker never studied economics.
kaiki
goon

Posts: 10

Registered:
Mar 2008
Re: The Economics of Villainy (Score: 1)
posted Monday, June 22, 2009 - 08:45 PM (#48268)

I took a look at the article and pointed out that his conclusion is very dependent on the numbers he uses. You can construct a scenario where everything that ShadowBanker says is true. But the Joker gets a expected utility that is close enough to his expected utility for soloing Batman that the Joker may not perceive the difference or the difference would be slight enough that teaming up would be the the rational solution.

Also, it should be pointed out that the Joker is crazy and therefor not bound by Economics ^_-


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JayaLaw
goon

Posts: 18

Registered:
Jun 2009
Re: The Economics of Villainy (Score: 1)
posted Tuesday, June 23, 2009 - 07:50 PM (#48297)
In Response to kaiki (#48268):

Thank God for that- but then again, can ANYONE picture Joker rational enough to follow economics?
I really should email the link to this blog to my former AP Economics teacher. She'd get a kick out of it.


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