“Mr. Robinson pretty much concludes that business schools are a sifting device—M.B.A. degrees are union cards for yuppies. But perhaps the most important fact about the Stanford business school is...

“Mr. Robinson pretty much concludes that business schools are a sifting device—M.B.A. degrees are union cards for yuppies. But perhaps the most important fact about the Stanford business school is that all meaningful sifting occurs before the first class begins. No messy weeding is done within the walls. ‘They don’t want you to flunk. They want you to become a rich alum who’ll give a lot of money to the school.’ But one wonders: If corporations are abdicating to the Stanford admissions office the responsibility for selecting young managers, why don’t they simply replace their personnel departments with Stanford admissions officers, and eliminate the spurious education? Does the very act of throwing away a lot of money and two years of one’s life demonstrate a commitment to business that employers find appealing?” (From the review by Michael Lewis of Peter Robinson’s Snapshots from Hell: The Making of an MBA, in the New York Times, May 8, 1994, Book Review section.) What answer to Lewis’s question can you give, based on our analysis of strategies in situations of asymmetric information?