Loyal readers: I can promise only weak monotonicity in my response, but what topics or questions or books or whatever would you like to see covered on MR?
Request for requests
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What’s the economics every person should know when graduating from school?
What can economics tell us about how to get rid of an addiction?
Tyler, could you please ask Alex to post his request for requests, too?
Economic history topics will always be greatly appreciated.
I would like to suggest William Baumol’s recent book “Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism”. It raises a number of the issues in Farewell to Alms in a most thought provoking way.
Oh, another thing:
5. How is economic modeling being affected by psychology research?
Most economists would say that a regulation that mandates the use of, say, water-efficient shower-heads incurs a dead weight loss, apart from the cost to ensure compliance (let’s ignore that cost for the moment). In this example I doubt the price would go up. But consumers might not get exactly what they would most want. But, I think psychology would say that people might grumble about this for a little while, but then they’d get used to it, and probably wouldn’t even care past a certain point.
So the question is: do we really trust the simple model of the rational consumer? Probably not, right? So how does it change our view of the world to shift to a more accurate model of the consumer? Does it affect our willingness to use certain regulatory levers? Etc.
More fiction reviews and suggestions.
Happiness (aka Subjective Wellbeing) Research
The importance of relative consumption/status
A post about Mexico’s future would be nice? Is this country progressing? How much and how far?
I am interested in what the end game for capitalism and free markets is.
if we assume:
1. all countries will eventually be politically and economically free
2. all countries will fully participate in the global economy.
3. technological progress will continue, but not exponentially indefinitely.
Then what will happen if (e.g.) we all get to the medium level of wealth in th US today?
Will services be too expensive (as domestic servants are for the middle class today vs. 1920)?
Will manufactured goods become luxury items (if made by hand as in current sweatshops) as the labour will be very expensive?
I’m sure you have other observations!
many thanks
Paul
p.s. will buy your book in paperback!
I hope a late comment will still be considered:
I’m applying to medical schools and will soon be weighing factors such as in-state location, cost, prestigiousness, proximity to current residence, and size of city as I choose schools.
Cost is the only truly quantifiable variable. It matters a lot; schools claim that your need will be covered by financial aid, but one’s parents’ incomes are factored into it even if you’re financially independent (up to age 30), so it ends up screwing you anyway. The debt is terrifying.
In short, aside from my personal city preferences, how much more should I pay/sacrifice to go to a prestigious school, or a far away one, etc?
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