Dear Economist,

Our economics lecturer is seriously slacking off. We are becoming frustrated with error-ridden slides, postponed lectures and cancelled assignments. When challenged, he explained to us that his level of remuneration from the school acted as a cap upon his input to our course.

Our real dilemma, however, is that as he decreases the workload for his course, we are indirectly benefiting in terms of additional time available for other subjects. Should we play along or blow the whistle to the school?

MBA students

Dear class,

You have not provided enough information for me to give a definitive answer, but you seem to be smart cookies and with a few pointers, you’ll figure it out. The first question is whether you think you are learning valuable skills on this MBA programme or just ”signalling” - proving that you are smart, hard-working and full of desire for a career in management consulting. If the former, then you should shop your lecturer before he denies you more opportunities to learn. Since he is teaching economics, however, I doubt you are learning anything practical. You have nothing to worry about unless the signal itself starts to look meaningless.

We then move to the next node on the decision tree. (Fancy MBA talk, no?) Does this lecturer degrade the signal your MBA is giving about what a brilliant bunch you are? As long as the external examiners are as lazy as the lecturer, your secret should be safe.

Just one thing. If you must blow the whistle, keep it all in-house. If word got around - say, to readers of the FT - that your MBA is a shambles, that really would be bad for your career prospects. So I have done you all an economic favour and left the name of your college off this letter.

Questions to economist@ft.com

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