Comments are open, so please let us know what you are interested in reading about. The only promise is that of weak monotonicity, namely that your mention won’t lower the chance of the topic being covered.
Request for requests
Previous post: Million dollar blocks
Next post: Tabarrok on NPR
Next Comments →
What impact will algorithmic game theory have on economics?
How does having the most well-developed system of intellectual property rights affect the United States in the global balance of trade in human capital?
On mainstream versus “fringier” economic schools of thought (and schools themselves too if you like); and on different schools of thought generally, and your take on them; where economic theory is at present.
Personal DNA sequencing, implications, business models off the back of a collection of DNA
How about a post about Sallie Mae (SLM) and the student loan market?
Difficulties in cultural communication, translations, or other sorts of cultural confusions. Personal stories from your many travels abroad would be a plus!
Is taking a photo or video of an event for later viewing worth it, even if it means more or less missing the event in realtime? What’s better, a lifetime of mediated viewing of my son’s first steps or a one-time in-person viewing?
Nothing to do with economics, but I find it infuriating that assassinated former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko has had his harshest allegations repeated publicly many times (Russian FSB blew up their own buildings, and trained al-Qaeda’s number 2 just months before he became al-Qaeda’s number 2 and set them on the path to 9/11), and yet no news publication will seriously consider the ramifications of them being true (i.e., there is really no such thing as home-grown Islamic terrorism on the scale that we see today). Ditto with assassinated dissident journalist Anna Politkovskaya (her allegations were just about the FSB’s domestic terrorism – nothing on Ayman al-Zawahiri). And this despite the vindication of most everything both of them said (including both of them predicting their own deaths).
More on classical music. I’ve loved classical for years, but have recently been trying to expand my listening repertoire, especially to avoid a quiet house now that I’m a freelancing fulltime. What do you think is the best way of discovering new (to me) composers/works/artists (that I would like)? What do you think of Pandora‘s newish classical capabilities? I have been impressed with its accuracy but infuriated by the fact that you can only get one movement at a time.
Explain exchange rates, in particular what affects them other than trade arbitrage.
Can the “new president” bring change? Public Choice versus Coordination problems.
Francis — I just wrote this post on YOUR questions about water. (Sorry for the hijack Tyler…)
In celebration of the warm weather:
How does an office/shopping mall/theater decide how low to set its air conditioning? It seems like they’ve found a bizarre and expensive equilibrium where the “normal” indoor temperature is 63 degrees (in August) and everyone carries an extra long-sleeve layer to keep warm. How did it get this way, and is there some way to fix it?
I read two article in the Times yesterday. The first about The Wealth Trajectory: Rewards for the Few at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/business/20view.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5089&en=2a93956770cc9ddd&ex=1366430400&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss
Talks about the growth of skilled workers has slowed:
Because growth in the supply of skilled workers has slowed, their wages have grown relative to those of the unskilled.
The second talks about the decline of the $20 wage: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/weekinreview/20uchitelle.html?ex=1366430400&en=ddcd89b85688beaf&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss
In the second I saw this:
Even now, roughly 15 percent of college-educated workers find themselves in jobs for which they are overqualified, the Economic Policy Institute reports, and many of these jobs pay less than $20 an hour.
The first article speaks to a shortage of skilled workers. But according to the second story 15% of college educated workers are overqualified. How can both be true?
The Washington Wizards in general and Caron Butler in particular as an extremely tiny benefit from the horrors of the drug war.
Why is it that any proposal to expand health insurance (that I have heard about) seeks to thoroughly regulate the activity and have wealthy users subsidize the insurance of poor patients?
Poor people cannot afford many things and the normal policy in those case is to subsidize their demand, not reform the whole activity (e.g., food stamps). Would it be better to regulate health care industry to make it as efficient as possible (allowing for all the right incentives to control costs and research for new cures) and subsidize demand for the poor (e.g., health insurance stamps) instead of creating all of these cross- subsidies?
Thanks,
Ignacio
I’d like more analysis of the “food crisis.” I have heard friends in El Salvador already talk about recent large run-ups in food prices. The article below quotes Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), as saying ““World agriculture has entered a new, unsustainable and politically risky period.”
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/The-new-face-of-hunger/299349/
Things are getting bad enough in the Philippines that they are lifting rice import quotas (what a concept!):
http://www.abc.net.au/ra/news/stories/200804/s2210468.htm
Of course, they are continuing with “land reform” there anyway:
http://www.pcij.org/blog/?p=2298
“Habito acknowledged that skeptics and oppositors of agrarian reform blame the program for an aggregate decline in agricultural investments and farm productivity since the enactment of Republic Act No. 6657″
I don’t know if this “food crisis” is truly a serious problem, whether it is a brief fluctuation due to a drought in Australia, a longer-term problem leading from widespread biofuel subsidies, or a real long-term problem associated with Asian economic growth meeting lack of Asian agricultural productivity rises.
The economic future of the Euro and Europe as a whole. While currently quite strong, I don’t see the European economy is as dynamic as the US or China. Also, the sheer weight of bureaucracy, both from the social-program-oriented national governments and the EU government on top of them, seems to be self-limiting. And did I mention demographic trends?
Carbon Tax Vs Cap and Trade – more information on the economics of pollution
I’d like you to address the economics of dating and finding a husband or wife.
Are you still doing a BBQ book? What’s your thoughts on Texas Ribs & BBQ in Clinton, MD? And why do I not understand the appeal of Baltimore pit beef after shlepping out to Chaps a couple of weeks ago?
Purchasing Power Parity (please).
I’m allergic to most seafood. What should I make for dinner?
The crowding out effect of government sponsored science R&D on private science R&D.
NBA predictions
The Metropolitan Opera has scored big by simulcasting to movie theaters. Is this good–can the Met do more good opera with the money, or does it kill off local opera companies? And why can’t Harvard do the same–Mankiw can teach Econ 101 to all college freshmen in the country?
More Tabarrok! (Not to be confused with, “Less Cowen!”)
I’m an educator in the inner city, so I’d like to see more related to that:
-How easy/hard is it to get out of the inner city, given that you are likely to attend a monumentally crappy school?
-What are the long-term economic effects of being locked up without charges, as many of my students are?
-How much should poor students be willing to take out as loans to attend college?
-To what extent is the decision to carry a child to term a disaster for a 16-year-old?
And so on.
More “meta” stuff — how to read, how to think, how to write, etc. Tyler’s tricks on being a prolific, successful academic.
Will economics in the future rely more on simulation models and less on mathematical models?
Revisit main/interesting topics, even if nothing has changed. There have been many great discussions and points brought up over the years. With readers coming and going revisiting these topics such as water rights, legalizing prostitution, academic incentives, etc would allow everyone to enjoy the topics with the greatest returns and would be a refresher. A great feature on the web page would be your top 50 posts that would allow people to do this on there own too.
How to become a rich man from knowing that inflation is higher than people realize.
What is the best county music?
I’m a university student who has just realized he is ignorant, uncultured and philistine. Some advice and introductory suggestions so that I may change my predicament.
Importance of (minimum levels of) health/nutrition at early stages of life for productivity and Economic Development.
your thoughts on bringing oxygen into the economy.
Prognostications, and links, on how globally rising food prices should be, and instead will be, handled in poor countries.
Along similar lines, consider this article in the NY Sun titled Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World. Note that the breadbasket they are talking about is the US.
Every economist knows instinctively and instantly what the cause is, but it is not until you get to the third (i.e. final) page, third to last paragraph (talk about burying the lead) that the uneducated reader gets a clue what is really going on.
We are going to be seeing more and more of these illiterate stories in the media as time goes by, we really need economists in the spotlight like TC and AT to spotlight the clueless analysis and explain to the masses what is happening and why.
“Verify your comment
As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below.
This test is used to prevent automated robots from posting comments.”
Since I saw this when posting my last, please discuss the nature of robots that are not automated, since they must be distinguished from those that are.
Why does the U.S. have so many lawyers per capita and is that a net negative or positive?
Bangladesh
Canada-US dollar parity and high Canadian prices.
How quickly will the system re-equilibrate (as in Canadian prices going down to US prices) and in which ways (i.e. what goods and how fast)?
What determines the speed of this change? Most obvious changes are in book prices to me – but Canada still very expensive…
Are prices always the best way to allocate scarce resources?
Are there conditions where queuing or other methods of allocating scare resources superior.
The 40 hour work week was established as the “norm” by the same federal legislation that established the first minimum wage. So why do so may economist that argue strongly against the minimum wage never attack the
40 hour work week? Essentially every argument against or for the minimum wage also applies to the 40 hour work week.
how about 10 best books under 150 pages?
Milton Friedman, Stephen Colbert, Milton Friedman
Tax incidence and the “terror tax” on oil — when it costs more to get a barrel of oil from Nigeria because of the need to defend against MEND, who pays?
The organic food movement — causes and implications.
Heuristics you use, during your travels or otherwise, to measure overall quality of life or real wealth in a country and happiness of those who live there (as an alternative to GDP or the UN metrics).
Why do people do work or exchange things for free? (Examples: FreeCycle, couchsurfing, open source programming, Wikipedia, In Rainbows). How would an economist explain what seems to be a growing number of examples of “free culture”? Can we expect free software, free journals, and so on to be sustained, or will this all disappear in a few decades?
I would really like to know your opinion on the new energy proposal put forward by President Calderon in Mexico, it seems to me it is on a level similar to the tax reform: it will end up being worse than the old system, and will be accepted because of the political situation the country is in right now.
You observed in an EconTalk podcast that much of what drives decisions could be described as an “economics of affiliation”, or words to that effect.
While the concept is not new, I thought your use of ‘affiliation’ to describe it was striking, giving the idea much greater depth.
Could you please you write about the “economics of affiliation”, perhaps looking at: i) commercial affiliation, say where we pay significantly above production costs for a brand names ii) how those brand names market themselves, iii) sporting, political or community group affiliations, i.e. people come to associate themselves with movements or teams they may only play an indirect role in yet car about very deeply.
Next Comments →
Comments on this entry are closed.