Economics 7 Week Challenge Series – Challenge 5: Make Me Happy Results

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to the results post for Challenge 5: Make Me Happy. This post contains a video of an Excel Model. This model has been used to generate the utility of activities for the 5 different characters described in the questions. The model also calculates the utility of each character selected by participants based on the amount of time allocated to activities.

Winner determined in this video

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What is the Make Me Happy Challenge?

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The Make Me Happy Challenge focuses on maximising the utility of different characters who have different preferences. Participants can choose between 5 different characters. Participants need to maximise the utility of their character using 168 hours in a week. This involves earning sufficient money to pay for basic needs as well as pay for activities that yield their character utility. Characters can only earn money from working. Working itself yields at least some utility but it is generally lower than most other activities. Characters do not start the week with any money and any remaining money yields no utility. The winner of the challenge will be the participant who provides the most utility for their character while not exceeding the characters disposable income.

Responses to the challenge are made in the comments section of the challenge post. The account with the winning entry will receive Hive equivalent to 5 times the number of participants (e.g. if challenge has 6 participants the prize will be 30 Hive (5 × 6)). The maximum prize for this challenge is 60 Hive. In addition to the winning prize, the first 12 entries are given upvotes. In addition to the prize in Hive, the winner receives 30 points, second place 20 points, and third place 10 points; these points contribute to determining the overall challenge series winner.

The format of the required entry is explained in detail in the challenge itself.

For a more detailed explanation, you can access the challenge post using the following link.

Other challenges

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There are six other challenges in the series. Unfortunately, all of them are now closed. See links below.

• Challenge 1: Auction
• Challenge 2: Buying and Selling Game (Business Version)
• Challenge 3: Tax Game (New)
• Challenge 4: Game Theory
• Challenge 5: Make Me Happy
• Challenge 6: Buying and Selling Game (Original Version)
• Challenge 7: Pick-a-door (New)

Results of Challenge 5

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Tables 1 and 2 contains the allocation of time for each activity by all participants for this challenge.

Table 1: Allocation of time for each activity (Participants 1 to 7)

Table 2: Allocation of time for each activity (Participants 8 to 14)

Note: Participants highlighted in red have been eliminated for not allocating sufficient time for sleeping (42 hours) or for not keeping within the 168 hours allocated for activities.

Table 3 contains the utility for each activity for all 5 characters.

Table 3: Utility of Activities for each Character

Table 4 contains the utility generated by each participant’s character

Table 4: Utility generated by each Participant's Characters

Participants	Utility
adedayoolumide	1,302
homesteadlt	941
crrdlx	804
adeyemi12	1,054
pana1	1,350
adeyemijan	1,346
fatherfaith	1,352

This challenge was very close. @fatherfaith won by just 2 Utils after allocating time for his character Hivelorian. He wins 60 Hive and 30 points. In second place is @pana1 who is awarded 20 points. In third place is @adeyemijan who is awarded 10 points.

Race to become the Challenge Series Champion

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After five challenges, the overall scores for the Challenge Series are as follows.

Overall Series Score

Position	Participants	Points
1	Fatherfaith	65
2	Adeyemijan	60
3	Pana1	55
4	Adedayoolumide	50
5	Temileke	30
6	Homesteadlt	20
7	Emeka4	10
8	Joshsticks28	5

This table will be updated in every results post.

Challenge Tips and Analysis

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This challenge involved a careful balancing act between earning income, choosing high utility activities, and low cost activities. Different characters required different approaches. For example, Hillary obtains utility from many different activities (e.g. eating out, going to pub, social media, playing sport, and playing video games). Therefore, spreading time more evenly across these many activities is likely to produce higher utility for her. For a character like Dennis, time would be better off concentrated on just a few activities such as just social media and video games. These activities are inexpensive. Therefore, Dennis only needs to work to cover his basic expenditure. However, working extra hours is fine as he obtains relatively more utility from work. Someone like Joey should only be allocated the minimum number of hours to cover his costs as work offers him very little utility.

Most of the participants understood the concepts of maximising utility by focusing on the activities that provided the highest chances of obtaining high utility. Well done participants.

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More posts

If you want to read any of my other posts, you can click on the links below. These links will lead you to posts containing my collection of works. These 'Collection of Works' posts have been updated to contain links to the Hive versions of my posts.

Hive: Future of Social Media

Spectrumecons on the Hive blockchain

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