Request for requests

I would like some promises.

Undergrad economics focuses on prices far more than wages. As a result, students fail to understand why some jobs pay 50k some pay 150k and others pay 500k. This ignorance results in suboptimal choices and needless misery.

jmo: What is the distinction you place between prices and wages (literally the price of labor)?

Why don’t they sell boxes of only orange popsicles?

The other colors/flavors are just not as good. So why are they dumping them on me?

And once the fancy math and marginal costs and discriminatory pricing all works out in a nice little model, ponder this: why doesn’t that same theory apply to Italian ices, which *are* sold with different colors/flavors in separate boxes?

PS kids and adults eat both

A fundamental misconception you had about economics, and the circumstances that helped change it.

Why are you blogging more with links instead of your own thoughts on subjects of the day? Are you running out of things to say or are other people getting smarter?
If you could pick one politician from the last century to be in charge during an economic crisis who would it be?

The rise of “foodies.”

Tyler, I would enjoy reading a series of posts detailing the importance of each concept on your list of “fifty-two common economic concepts” including an explanation, example, direction to relevant literature, etc.

I’m a 30 year old with a decent education from two state schools (undergrad and law), but I believe I’m lacking the kind of broad-based, classical education I would have received had I attended better schools. If I, and others like me, want to embark on a personal quest to fill in the gaps of my general knowledge, what are my essential reads in major fields, e.g., history, economics, literature, philosophy, etc.?

NPR fund drives, I try to always contribute (and now thanks to recurring Credit Card billing I really do)but given the massive annoyance and the reported rates of listeners actually paying (seems here in Houston to be less than 10%) why doesn;t everyone subscribe at some low basic rate and now we have no more need of any plede drive ever again. Or alternatively why is there not some technological gizmo that you pay for which bypasses pledge drive and lets you listen to All Thongs Considered or Morning Edition (obviously there are other worthwhile programs but generally not when I HAVE to be driving.)

Regards

The evolution of the rules of sports as a standards-setting process – - are the rules of basketball (or baseball, golf, football…) optimal in the same way that (arguably, at least) the QWERTY keyboard is?

I don’t recall you going into detail on this, but maybe I’m wrong. Do you agree with the Keynesian case for fiscal stimulus? If not, why not? People like Krugman and DeLong think no reasonable economist could possibly disagree with the case for stimulus, and are convinced it prevented a worse outcome. Aside from timing issues of fiscal policy, how do you think about this issue of aggregate demand, particularly with rates near the zero bound?

Are there entrepreneurial opportunities for people interested in competing with yelp, wherethelocalseat.com, road food, city search, independent food bloggers, etc. or is the space too crowded/competitve?

I’m interested to hear more about the economic way of thinking. I think at least a few of us academics in the humanities like reading econoblogs because economists tend to give level-headed, sensible social analysis as opposed to the fantasies of the academic Left. A DeLong or a Krugman is so much more reasonable than a typical humanities academic, even when one disagrees. What are the prospects for the economic way of thinking among the humanities profession, and/or the chattering class in general? When are English professors going to cite Samuelson more often than Marx? On the other hand, which if any aspects of culture simply can’t be captured in economic models?

More trilobites!

Please comment on bullying. Specifically, what response might economics suggest to a bullied child to produce the most favorable result (no more bullying)? The paths I see available to them are 1) tell an adult 2) try to avoid the bully 3) try to reason with the bully 4) try to defend themselves in ways that, while not severe, somehow signal a willingness to respond more vigorously and 5) respond with extreme violence.

I think 3 and 4 are unlikely since, if the victim were capable of such a response, they would probably not be good targets for bullying in the first place. I believe traditionally victims have opted for 2, but it seems that there may be a trend of more children opting for 5, since they don’t see any better option and are now presented with many precedents like Columbine (I think most of them believe option 1 will be either ineffective or counterproductive, with a high probability of worsening the situation).

What do you think?

Adam Stevens: you left out another oft used strategy (assuming the bullying is generally emotional and not wanton violence or property theft), agree with the bully. Few things take someone who is saying foul things about you quite like blithely agreeing.

Request:
More on signaling and education re: the limits of the auto-didact. While the internet and textbooks can provide a strong foundation or even “degree-equivalent” knowledge of a subject, ultimately self-study feels like teaching yourself spanish by watching Telemundo, at some point don’t most need full emersion in the academic atmosphere?

1) Please offer your plan for health care reform, or at least an outline.

2) If we removed payroll caps in the NBA, would we see another Celtics level dynasty some day? Can we see one with caps?

3)Would a consulting firm be smart to advertise looking for people with Asperger’s? How would you expect such a firm to perform compared with firms that had a distribution of workers similar to the general population?

Steve

top 10 favorite economic curves.

What is the latest topic in economics you changed your mind on? What is the worst problem in the practice of economics? And what is the real reason behind people opposing organ sales?

Otherwise I would just request that you stick more to spreading the libertarian gospel. (In a intellectually serious manner of course.) This would makes it more interesting for the non-libertarians who read this blog.

I can read arguments for government interventions in plenty of places if I want to. I come here to learn why it should be legal to sell heroin to toddlers.

Does constitutionality respect transitivity?

Puffins.

The healthcare debate to date has revolved around the demand for healthcare services. It seems to me that controlling costs should involve looking at both sides of the equation – supply and demand. How about writing something about how to increase the supply of healthcare services rather than just how to ration the existing supply?

Rationality. How do we define it universally when preferences and behavior patterns are vastly influenced by culture? If a thing is regarded as rational in my country but the opposite is believed in country X, how should I behave in country X if I want to be rational?

Discuss the world-wide economic slowdown as a natural experiment on the costs and benefits of policies designed to combat climate change. The evidence the earth is warming seems compelling. Less compelling is the evidence carbon emissions are the root cause (causation vs. correlation). Even if man-made carbon emissions were the root cause, the case for a policy intervention rests on theory/evidence suggesting the expected marginal benefits exceed the expected marginal costs. For the first time since the 1930s, world output has declined. Presumably, this will reduce carbon emissions. So the current recession provides a baseline for the size of the economic cost (through an implicit or explicit tax on output)of a given reduction in carbon emissions.