Month: November 2007

Many Worlds, Most Strange

by  Alex Tabarrok in

Hugh Everett, the originator of the multiple worlds interpretation of quantum physics, was a strange fellow.  He left physics when Neils Bohr refused to take his ideas seriously and went into defense work where he made millions.  His son Mark Everett is lead singer for the Eels.  A BBC documentary, Parallel Worlds, Parellel Lives looks at father and son:

They lived in the same house for nearly 20 years and barely spoke. The first
time Mark touched his father was when he found his stiffening corpse, still in
bed and still in the suit he always wore. Mark himself, unusually for a rock
star, wears a suit on stage. A devout atheist, Hugh told his wife to throw his
ashes out with the trash, which, after keeping them for a bit in a filing
cabinet, she duly did.

Hat tip to MetaFilter.

Addendum: Here’s an interview with Mark Everett about his father.

Conservative Pigs and Liberal Bonobos

by  Alex Tabarrok in

Herb Gintis reviews Krugman on Amazon:

Krugman’s vision for the future has three key premises, all wrong.
First, he believes progressives can win on a platform of
redistributing from the rich. However, no one cares about inequality.
People care about injustice, unfairness, poverty, sexual predators,
family values, gay marriage, terrorism, and many other problems of
everyday life. People don’t care about Gini distributions and other
abstractions. Moreover, Krugman should know that if the wealth were
redistributed to the middle class, the US investment rate would fall,
since the rich save their money and it is translated into investment,
whereas the middle classes would spend their gains on consumption, thus
driving out investment. A "soak the rich" policy simply cannot work to
the advantage of the middle classes.

Second, Krugman would strengthen the labor unions, which he
credits for their egalitarian effects. However, unions were strong only
when industry was highly non-competitive in such areas as automobiles
and steel. The oligopolistic character of mid-twentieth century
industry, with a few countries in the lead, made fighting over the
excess profits highly rewarding. With globalization, there are no
excess profits to be fought over. Thus, it is not surprising that most
successful unions in the USA are public service, not private (e.g.,
teachers, government employees). There is no future in unionism,
period.

Third, Krugman believes that liberalism can be restored to its
1950’s health without the need for any new policies. However, 1950’s
liberalism was based on southern white racism and solid support from
the unions, neither of which exists any more. There is no future in
pure redistributional policies in the USA for this reason. Indeed, if
one looks at other social democratic countries, almost all are moving
from corporate liberalism to embrace new options, such as Sarkozy in
France (French socialists have the same pathetic political sense as
American liberals, and will share the same fate).

I am sorry that we can’t do better than Krugman. There are very
serious social problems to be addressed, but the poor, pathetic,
liberals simply haven’t a clue. Conservatives, on the other, are
political sophisticated and hold clear visions of what they want. It is
too bad that what they want does not include caring about the poor and
the otherwise afflicted, or dealing with our natural environment.
Politics in the USA is no longer Elephants and Donkeys; it is now
conservative Pigs and liberal Bonobos. The pigs are smart but only care
about what’s in their trough. The Bonobos are polymorphous perverse and
great lovers, but will be extinct in short order.

Hat tip to PrestoPundit.

Ruggedness: how bad terrain helped parts of Africa

by  Tyler Cowen in

There is controversy about whether geography matters mainly because of
its contemporaneous impact on economic outcomes or because of its
interaction with historical events.  Looking at terrain ruggedness, we
are able to estimate the importance of these two channels.  Because
rugged terrain hinders trade and most productive activities, it has a
negative direct effect on income.  However, in Africa rugged terrain
afforded protection to those being raided during the slave trades.
Since the slave trades retarded subsequent economic development, in
Africa ruggedness also has had a historical indirect positive effect on
income.  Studying all countries worldwide, we find that both effects are
significant statistically and that for Africa the indirect positive
effect dominates the direct negative effect.  Looking within Africa, we
provide evidence that the indirect effect operates through the slave
trades.  We also show that the slave trades, by encouraging population
concentrations in rugged areas, have also amplified the negative direct
impact of rugged terrain in Africa.

That’s a new paper by Nathan Nunn and Diego Puga.  Some say the paper is here, not I.  Others say you can get it here.  I say you can get an html version here.  Here is one quick summary of the argument.  Here are Nunn’s other papers on the slave trade, and how it continues to affect current African development.
 

Back on the Streets

by  Alex Tabarrok in

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has just released a new study, Pretrial Release of Felony Defendants in State Courts (pdf).  The study is interesting reading if only to remind oneself how crime is concentrated among a small minority of repeat offenders.  Nearly a quarter of released defendants, for example, fail to appear on the day of their trial; worse yet 17 percent of released defendants are rearrested for a new offense before their trial even begins.  If 17 percent are rearrested you can be pretty sure that the percentage of releasees who have committed a new crime is much higher.

The BJS study also verifies my research with Helland showing that commercial bail and bounty hunters work well.  Defendants released on commercial bail are less likely to fail to appear and are more likely to be recaptured if they do fail to appear compared to those released on their own recognizance or on a public bail system.

The economics of Kindle

by  Tyler Cowen in

Here are two short essay-lets.  I’ll admit to not yet having seen a Kindle, but I think it is not the wave of the future and not the next iPod.  The key feature of the iPod is the use of software to organize your music collection, not just the portability.  The (somewhat) comparable use of software for reading is RSS, but Kindle is not an efficient way of reading blogs, it is mostly designed for full-length titles.  (And if you really want to read your favorite blogs on RSS, while you walk around, the iPhone already allows that.)  Furthermore we want to hear our favorite songs many times, but the ability to call up again our favorite book is not of comparable value, again limiting the value of using software to organize our reading.  Plus a book takes longer to consume than does a song, so just carry the book you are reading instead of carrying Kindle.  Maybe Kindle is good for voracious readers who take long trips, and don’t want to buy books along the way, but can you build a market on that?

Here is one interesting review of the product, here is a very detailed and very pro-Kindle review.  I’m still a skeptic, at least until software takes on a larger role in reorganizing the reading experience. 

Why is the European press more pessimistic than the American press?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Paul Krugman points this out, for instance read today’s FT article, titled in the print edition "Investors Fear New Turmoil: Credit markets Expect Recession in US."  InTrade gives about a fifty percent chance of recession in the U.S., so you could argue the case for optimism or pessimism either way.

Does the greater pessimism of Europeans produce more disciplined and respectful children?  Or just more pessimistic newspapers?  I believe the "America is due for a comeuppance" view remains very popular across the Atlantic.

Addendum: Here is one optimistic account, from Oklahoma.

Why don’t American kids respect their parents more?

by  Tyler Cowen in

First, you are welcome to challenge the premise that there is in fact less respect for parents in the United States.  But if it were true, what might be the possible mechanisms?

1. American parents have less time to discipline their kids, in part because women are more likely to work, wages are higher, and there is a general rush and hurry.

2. American culture is less closely tied to the entire notion of hierarchy and respect, whether or not kids are in the picture.

3. The American divorce rate is relatively high.

4. Balance is difficult, and a tipping point requires that someone be in charge.  In America that is the kids, although the underlying reasons for this difference may be quite small.

5. America is saturated in mass media, and that culture encourages the independence of the child, most of all because children are prime viewers of TV and drivers of Nielsen ratings.

6. Americans are more mobile, and thus less likely to live near grandparents, support structures, and other mechanisms of norm enforcement.

7. It is simply a time trend.  Americans are ahead of the rest of the world but everyone else is catching up.  Give them time, it’s just like how we will all come to resemble California someday.

8. "In America it depends on how parents behave and whether particular parents deserve to be treated with respect.  Parents don’t get respect automatically just because they are parents."  I’m not going to tell you who said that one.

9. Some other notion of American exceptionalism.

Your views?  Google appears to yield few answers to this question or even attempts at an answer…

Which are the most obese American cities?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Memphis wins the competition, but:

Had we included every area on the list, the smaller cities of
Huntington, W.V., and Ashland, Ohio, on the West Virginia, Kentucky and
Ohio state borders would have far outpaced every city on the list with
obesity rates of 45%. Of the 50 cities we did rank, Boston entered
last, with only 19%.

Here is the full story.  Residents of San Antonio are the most likely to patronize fast food restaurants, with an average (or is it median?) of 20 fast food days a month.  I’ll note that Latino fast food is better than average and it involves a smaller health penalty, relative to the non-fast food.  Here are photos of the most obese American cities, though oddly they show the buildings far more than the people.  Would an article about tall or wide buildings show only the people?  Could they not find heavy people?  Or do they think we simply don’t want to look at them?

Field experiments for cultural protectionism

by  Tyler Cowen in

The [writers’] strike, Layfield noted, "is perfect timing for our January
launch.  It’ll give Canadians an opportunity to go and watch something
different rather than watching reruns of American shows. "Once (Canadians) see … the quality and the stories that they like, you win them over pretty quickly," she added.  CBC [a Canadian network] announced three new dramas, a sitcom, a daytime talk show and a reality series yesterday.

Here is more.  And on the other side of the border:

With the Writers Guild of America still on strike and no guarantee
that a resumption of talks next week will bring any resolution, this
should all be a boon for Canadian shows vying to air in the United
States, right?…but there is no
indication that U.S. programmers are looking to Canada in droves.

As for one new show, The Border, the Canadian producer remarked:

"Many test viewers who have seen this have said that it doesn’t look
like traditional Canadian television.  It’s got a whole other level of
energy, of entertainment value. There’s never a dull moment," Raymont
added.

Have you heard about cultural path dependence?  The simplest hypothesis, of course, is that once Canadian producers gain a foothold in their home market they will be able to keep it.  I’ll predict no, but stay tuned for further reports next year…

Is libertarianism the new “in” thing?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Here is the story.  Nick Gillespie says:

"We’re the Sith Lords of American politics," he says, referring to
the "Star Wars" baddies.  "We can show up in any group.  We’re both
terrifying and devilishly attractive."

Since I’m not either of those things, and I’ve made other claims about the Sith Lords, I said something different:

Libertarian economist Tyler Cowen of George Mason University says
the new breed of Swiftian commentary found on shows such as "The Daily
Show" and "The Colbert Report," though not explicitly libertarian, also
has contributed to the current libertarian moment.  "The way to be funny is to make fun of something," Mr. Cowen notes.

There is more by me at the very end of the article (yes, you too can look into my heart).  In part libertarianism has become cool because Republicanism has become so uncool, thereby leaving a cultural gap which Hillary Clinton alone cannot fill.

What is wrong with Amtrak?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Megan McArdle tells us:

…why is America’s high-speed rail so dreadful? The Acela delivers
you, at enormous added expense, to Boston one hour ahead of the
regional. On the DC-to-NY run, the added benefit is 10-15 minutes. The
answer is that the Acela uses existing track, which is twisty, the
better to serve every congressional district between here and Boston.
Real high speed rail needs to be fairly straight, for the same reason
you don’t take hairpin turns at 120 mph in your car.

I had never heard the Congressional district argument before.  I’ve also heard that freight railways crowd the lines and Amtrak doesn’t pay a high enough prices for access; the freight services had, way back when, pledged to the government to give Amtrak trains priority but of course that kind of cheap talk is not enough to get the job done; here is some relevant background, and more here.  Here is a good summary of Amtrak critiques.  It comes from a whole blog devoted to criticizing Amtrak.

Bryan Caplan peers into my heart

by  Tyler Cowen in

And I believe he doesn’t like what he sees:

Who wouldn’t want to see Tyler Cowen publicly debate Robin Hanson?
Well, aside from the masses? I think they’d both be willing, if they
could only pinpoint a good topic. A while back they had an extended
blog dialogue (see here, here, and here); can you extract a resolution from it?

Personally, the bottom line of Tyler’s latest post
reminds me of a debate topic that someone suggested after a recent
seminar: "Few major changes in the policies of modern democracies are
desirable." Depending on when you ask him, Tyler might deny that he
believes this, but in his heart, he does. And no matter when you ask
Robin, he’ll be ready to argue the contrary.

Other topic suggestions?  If Tyler and Robin wind up using your novel suggestion, lunch is on me.

Here is the link.