Request for requests

top economic misconceptions of the lay people you wish you could correct?

You’ve spent a lot of time studying economic models. You probably have an opinion about their overall reliability.

How should that opinion influence your view of the issue of environmental change, given that many of the inferences about such change come from general climate models that are, in some ways, very similar to economic models?

I’d like to hear your views about the rise of randomized trial experiments and the obsession with “clever” instruments versus structural or quasi structural empirical work. Keane (JoE, forthcoming) and Rust (JoE, forthcoming) have a really good discussion of how there are many, many assumptions that go into atheoretic, clever instruments-based empirical work, but they just go unstated. Any thoughts?

Why Steve Sailer is wrong.

“The five best reasons to think you should be more dogmatic about the economic beliefs you are are not dogmatic about.”

Hehe, that’s kind of like the one “tell me where you think you are wrong.”

Personally, I think one should only be dogmatic about only one or two things in life. I choose politics and economics.

I just got done watching “The Corporation.” I’d accidentally gotten the second disk previously, which I found a lot more interesting than the main documentary. They actually talk about externalities, etc. The business people talk about internalizing them while the lefties demand expanding the commons. Personally, I think it’s dumb that the government requires corporations to ONLY maximize shareholder value. It’s probably not that bad (heaven knows that in my last job I was incessantly harassed about diversity, the environment, yada yada yada, to the detriment of my customers), and surely not viewed as a government problem by the lefties, but “The Corporation” comes close to the problem even if their solutions are misguided.

Anyway, what are the “best” arguments against free market liberal capitalism and what are the answers to them?

Oh, and how ’bout a flying penguin?

I’ve been watching the olympics a bit lately, and I was wondering:

Are there huge bias problems in sports that are scored by subjective judging (gymnastics, diving, etc)? Everything is scored in numbers, and there are even different difficulty ratings assigned to different moves and routines, but it all seems highly subjective.

I mean, if we have referee bias in basketball, where the game essentially hinges on the easily quantifiable number of times a ball goes into the net…

Why do presumably rational economists get caught up in religious or political nonsense?

Why do so few economists follow a fitness reoutine?

Professor Cowen,

I just finished reading Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson” and found it both simple and stimulating. I am an avid supporter of free market economics and am wondering why such disastrous government policies as minimum wage, rent control, and subsidies continue to be the status quo when arguments debunking their effectiveness have been provided decades ago? I do not feel like “politics” is an adequate answer to this question because these policies would not be politically viable if the people knew they were ineffective. Is it education? Or is it that the advocates of the free market have not done a good enough job putting forth their arguments to the public? Milton Friedman would go on many television shows and debate economics, educating the populace on his ideals. But since his passing, it doesn’t seem like those who advocate capitalism are stepping up on to the sopabox and explaining to people not only that capitalism works but why it works.

-Stephen

What are some best practices for signing a communal office congratulations card? I’d like to believably feign sincerity while not having my kind words aped by a future signer.

Musings on the increase (and apparent success) of Chinese investment in Africa?

Any thoughts on progressive pricing schemes (increasing marginal rates with usage) for utilities, e.g., water, electricity, natural gas, as a means for encouraging conservation? What would be the overall effect on prices? How would agencies determine the right pricing curves?

I think that Fannie and Freddie created a subsidized market for consumer debt. Not that there is anything wrong with this by itself. However, this fact, combined with low rates from the Fed and the lending bubble created a consumer-based recovery with no real job creation. In the meantime, it is virtually impossible for a small company to get meaninful loan until it doesn’t need it.

I would like to know how you would suggest designing a system that creates a more efficient commercial lending market for small-to-medium businesses helping to create jobs in the US that avoids the pitfalls for Fannie and Freddie. Is it covered bonds? Do loan terms need to be standardized? I assume that the lack of a hard asset (the home) can be made up for with higher interest rates (many small companies use credit cards at 20-25% which is cheaper than VC money). What is needed to kick-start such a system? Is there a role for the SBA?

The focus of NASA on research vs. exploration (manned space flight) and how this depends on prevailing economic and political conditions. Cf. Obama’s comments on NASA, and their backlash.

Museums. This is a sector that it is sadly very far from realizing its potential. Instead of adding another $200 million wing to one of the existing behemoth museums, how about a proliferation of small, entrepreneurial niche museums, venues where the curator is more important that the acqusition fund? Neue Galerie in NYC is a good example, albeit rather traditional. How about a small museum of ideology on the upper east side?

What niche museums would you like to see? Which one would you like to curate yourself?

What is the cheapest way to build a boat (a skiff)?

Compensation problems:

1) Why are MBAs so well-compensated relative to other white-collar workers (i.e. IT/Engineers/Computing)
2) Why nurses are not so well-compensated

sovereign immunity

Ideas on how the ‘MARGINAL REVOLUTION’ theme might be applied in policy more consistently – most interestingly: on how to deal with EXTERNALITIES.

After all, there isn’t that much revolution happening in the margins, right now.

I wonder when markets can internalize such costs by (re)organizing themselves, and when this just isn’t realistic.

Prediction markets are interesting, too.

As an evil individual (1), I’m curious what you think about evil. You’ve given examples of what you consider evil, but I’m curious about the general rule. Could you explain what constitutes evil and why you believe this?

(1) I decapitate people with a katana and then eat their brains. I also “play the game” with women, ala Roissy.

^^I’ll expand on Graham. Do people care more about their marginal tax rates or their average tax rates?

Simpler one: What’s the one thing you would change?

Drug War

behavioral economics

Based on projections by CBO and GAO, the costs of entitlement programs, in particular Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, will result in ever increasing deficits, beginning sometime in the next few years.

I assume that there won’t be any political action to deal with this situation until the economic and monetary consequences force action. I also believe that the monetary, investment and financial communities will ignore the situation until it becomes a crisis?

Do you have a point of view on thes assumptions?

Medical research appears to be a very unusual beast.

In essentially every area you can think of research leads to new, less expensive products and approaches that lower cost.

But medical research appears to be the exception where new products and research break throughs appear to lead to more spending and higher cost.

What is it about the economics of the medical system that generates this counterintuitive results?

Or is it that I’m just measuring the output incorrectly?