Request for requests

by  Tyler Cowen in

What would you like to hear about?  What questions do you have?  No promises are made, but your chances can only go up.

Comments

Delirious

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

Meds

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Is the overall demand for concert tickets elastic or inelastic? If elastic, then what's with the ridiculous Ticketmaster service charges? Why doesn't anybody care about Ticketmaster acting as the only source [well, about 90% of the market] for purchasing tickets? These were just a few of my thoughts as I attended several recent summer concerts with only 1/2 the seats filled. I haven't found any great research on this matter.

Rich

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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?

mikesdak

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I'd be interested in your thoughts on eliminating the separate
Social Security tax and adjusting income taxes to compensate.

Al

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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?

Speedmaster

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I'd love to get your thoughts on the 'eat local' and 'locavore' nonsense.

Blackadder

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Why Steve Sailer is wrong.

Chris Masse

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Hi Prof Tyler Cowen,

Are some prediction markets inherently incapable of predicting the future?

midasoracle.org/2008/08/20/vp-candidate-prediction-markets/

Andrew

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"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?

a student of economics

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How about explaining Ricardian Equivalence in light of tax proposals which imply very large deficits?

Is a "tax cut" really a tax cut if the gov't just borrows the money to pay for it? In theory, citizens are supposed to be smart enough to know that the bills will have to be paid -- by them. In theory, they know it's not a tax cut, but just a tax shift.

So perhaps all tax proposals should be "normalized" to reflect the net present value of tax obligations. E.g. if a candidate cuts taxes for group X but not group Y, and leaves everything else the same, then that is really a tax INCREASE on group Y exactly equal to the net tax cut on group X.

Apparently people don't behave in practice as they "should" in theory. Does this means economists and journalists are not doing their jobs in explaining what actually happened in past administrations or the current candidates' tax proposals?

d.cous.

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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...

paul

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Most people don't want registered sex offenders living near them. In fact our real estate agent told us there was one in a certain area, which lowered our internal valuation of the home we were looking at.

So why don't sex offenders make a killing by moving into rich neighborhoods and collecting payments from residents to leave? Sure, there is a problem of the commons, but it seems like it could be overcome.

David Rotor

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

Why do so few economists follow a fitness reoutine?

Pavel from Prague

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The failure of the hypothesis of efficient markets over the last ten years deserves attention.

Since 1998 there has been one boom-bust cycle after another. With bubbles and bursts abundant, who can still believe in efficient markets timely reflecting all available information?

Stephen Meli

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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

zooman

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How would you reform the current DMV/car registration process?

Drucker

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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.

John Dewey

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Transportation economics issues:
- costs and benefits of mass transit;
- effectiveness of fuel standards for automobiles;
- congestion tolls and congestion pricing;
- funding highways and roads;
- rail infrastructure investment;
- ethanol requirements and subsidies;
- privatization of air traffic control;
- comnparison of passenger airline business models;
- air taxis.

Urban design issues:
- smart growth economics;
- dispersed vs concentrated metropolitan development;
- alternatives to commuting.

nick

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

overconsume

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how can we go about determining the probabilities of the future importance of money if some alternative scenarios comes to pass: http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/07/my-talk-at-jane.html

i am not asking about the future purchasing power of money, but rather the possibility of a huge expansion of the quality-of-life gap between the haves and have-nots. for example, now, the difference between the haves and have nots might be the ability to afford luxurious vacations, opulent houses etc. in some future scenarios, perhaps only those that have enough to afford a bodyguard have the chance of a high quality of life. if one predicts this, then saving money now might be particularly important.

Michael B.

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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?

?

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If you were a young, educated person whose primary goal was to influence your country's politics toward your preferred ideology, how would you structure your life?

Nick Owen

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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?

Michael F. Martin

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Was Hayek wrong about patents? Do you agree or disagree with Michael Novak on this point:

http://books.google.com/books?id=I6mnyLYBEgkC&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=Novak+Hayek+patents&source=web&ots=zhixQm0hf1&sig=XpzCeKJnCRE_ddqOxoB4GNox6QQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

Pan

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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.

Greg

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I'm going to be uncreative and second the requests on 1) Ricardian equivalence on deficits, 2) transportation and urban design, and 3) psychology, especially cognitive psychology and cognitive limits as they apply to economic assumptions. Behavioral economics has brought down a few old economic assumptions posing as axioms. Is that it, or is there a bigger wave of rethinking assumptions about rational economic decision-making coming? On a related note, are firms as irrational in practice as individuals? I'm thinking primarily of corporate strategy, not internal politics, although they're related.

Finally, what's your take on energy conservation? Conservatives tend to pooh-pooh it, liberals tend to push it. Is it just a one-time gain, and if so, is it big enough to make an impact on energy demand? Or is it really another way of talking about energy efficiency gains, where you would expect to see a long term process of continuous improvement? Is its magnitude negligible in relation to the growth of the energy supply from various sources? Would enough people ever be motivated to pursue it, and if not, should we mandate it?

Not the same as the previous Greg, fyi.

Johan

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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?

Vernon

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Things that keep you up at night (e.g., nuclear war)

Economics in nature (e.g., ant colonies)

Counter-intuitive wisdom

EatinCrow

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

Jerry

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For an economic layperson: if inflation is primarily a monetary phenomenon and everyone is cutting back on lending (and thus, as I understand it, money creation) why is everyone worried about inflation?

Alex

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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

Dave

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Economics of adoption (domestic/international) vs fertility treatments.

Alex J.

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sovereign immunity

John Meredith

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Why do you get so much ticket touting before major concerts by artists like Madonna and the Rolling Stones where the full value of the tickets must be easy to establish in advance (which isn't the case for lesser known acts). Why don't they simply charge something closer to the value of the ticket?

igor

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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.

Corey

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Why do poets say crazy things about economics? (Ezra Pound had a lot of nutty ideas about usury and the gold standard) Many contemporary poets seem to think some brand of Marxism still holds true (not even Keynesianism, just straight up Marxism--and not just the analytical kind). What's up with that?

Ninja Zombie

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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.

Graham

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Last week there was some controversy over Obama's marginal tax rates via a post from Greg Mankiw. What kind of measurable effect do marginal tax rates really have on people's career decisions? It seems unlikely to me that many people would decline a promotion or work less hours to avoid paying more taxes (if they even realized that they would be moving into a different tax bracket).

k

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

J.

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I loved the discussion about travelling into year 1000. I would appreciate another sequel: Instead of appearing somewhere just like that, one would suddenly end up in a position of power. What do to to make a difference?

My favorite things Hungarian.

My favorite things Czech.

My favorite things Polish.

My favorite thigns Slovak.

My favorite German books.

Tom

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

Kent Guida

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Has Bryan Caplan single-handedly refuted Enlightenment as a political philosophy?

guy in the veal calf office

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Why we should be suspicious of the field of economics.

Jack

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behavioral economics

dzot

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Scores of Europeans, from Tocqueville to Levy, have visited the US and wandered around, making insightful commentary and critques. Has any Asian ever done the same (and if so, is it available in translation)? If not, why not?

John Bailey

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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?

AS

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If we reduced the barriers to entry and allowed more banks to form, would that reduce the liquidity problems we currently face in the financial system?

spencer

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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?

Philip Wallach

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Team Handball. Discuss.

John Ur

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I'm moving to southwest France, middle of the countryside, no major towns near me. After living in DC for two years, I fear I'm going to have feelings of isolation and I'm not going to experience much diversity (in people, foods and culture) as I would if I were in a bigger city. Many people say offhand that it will be great out there. But I'm more sceptical. So the question is: when living in another country, is it better to live in the major metropolitan areas? Or out in the country side amid presumed homogeneity?

Second topic: I've lived without an iPod after my last one broke for over a year. I think my life is better off without one. I walk around the streets and hear people and the sounds of the city. Do you think people would lead happier lives if they took their headphones off?

NC Almirall

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I second J. and expand on his request by requesting more posts on culture.

Scott

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A religious person posed this question to me the other day:

"What is an economist's opinion on the social cost of sin?"
I explained that "sin" is not an easily defined or accepted term, and we settled on the following:

"What is the cost to society of that society's failure to live by 'The Golden Rule'"?

C Coop

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Are there any modern day intellectuals? For example who would you nominate as the next Noam Chomsky? (Say born after WWII)

unmarshal

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I'd like to hear more about the new networked information economy. Specifically the future of copyright and patent law in this new context. I read this thought provoking book by Yochai Benkler called The Wealth of Networks in which he creates a taxonomy of different actors in the marketplace who each have different motivations, some non-profit driven and argues that this new information economy has efficiencies that have been unrealized in the old industrial information style economy (think wikipedia). I've been really looking forward to either you or Russ Roberts having a discussion about this book.

unmarshal

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oh, the book is available for free online here:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/wealth_of_networks/Main_Page

Anonymous

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Oh, and how 'bout a flying penguin?

It was a puffin.... And yes, we need more "By the way, here's a ...." addenda to posts.

tell us who the obnoxious blogger is, or if it was some kind of meta-joke.

He already did - you weren't paying attention ... it wasn't a joke.

pjglandon

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Along the lines of Stephen Meli's questions, what are the fundamental disagreements between socialist types and libertarians? I can't quite understand why there is such a large distance between opposing views on the role of federal government among intellectuals. Does it boil down to values? I guess I'm also trying to understand why there aren't more libertarians in this world.

Resty Cena

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I am compiling a list of fundamental principles and concepts in economics (and other sciences) to serve as bases for lessons in a high school course on original, creative, and scientific thinking. What would your take be on such a list?

JohnMcG

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How are the Olympics covered in Chile? Are they hyper-focussed on the (I assume) few Chilean athletes with medal hopes, or is it a more equitable survey?

jedermann

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more on good sociology/ bad sociology

Tom

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Physicists now believe that due to the finite availability of free energy, intelligent life cannot persist forever, or rather, can think only a finite number of thoughts, regardless of time horizon (see, for example, the Scientific American article "The Fate of Life in the Universe" by Krauss and Starkman). Assuming this theory is correct, what is the optimal birthrate, both at present and going forward? Does your answer depend on whether there is other intelligent life in the universe?

Tim Fowler

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An examination of the empirical evidence that suggests that higher tax rates (not just extreme tax rates but generally higher rates) result in lower economic growth, either all taxes, or taxes related to capital (capital gains taxes, taxes on dividends, maybe corporate taxes)

Alvin Lee

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What textbooks (up to 5) would you recommend to a person who wanted a basic grasp of economics, but didn't have time for classes?

Randall Parker

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If traits in humans that are necessary for a free society are getting selected against by current selective pressures is it ethically acceptable to use the power of governments to create selective pressures that favor the propagation of alleles that make people more willing and able to defend free societies?

Kris

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How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

What incentives might be useful in lifting his output?

Andrew

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"It was a puffin....

I know, and I want a damn penguin damnit!

And while he's at it, pick a business cycle theory and solve it already!

Anonymous

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How often do you get an "8" square in the expert level of Minesweeper (16x30 board, 99 mines)? I got one for the first time recently (on Windows XP, it's very light gray color, like a disabled item on a menu).

What are the mathematical odds of seeing an "8", assuming completely random distribution of the mines? I tried to calculate it but got an answer which seemed improbably low; did I miscalculate or is the distribution of mines in fact not random but clustered?

londenio

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If we really wanted to use the Olympic medal table as a measure of national sporting power, what would the fairest criterion/a to choose the set of Olympic sports/disciplines?

I have been thinking along the lines of maximum marginal variance explained. I.e. if one person can win 8 golds, then perhaps all those events are measuring the same thing and hence explain the same dimension of variance. I would like to hear your thoughts.

Thanks :)

ZBicyclist

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Why is third world microcredit "good" (i.e. trendy and Nobel prize winning) but U.S. payday loans "bad" (outlawed in many states)?

Noah

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How about: Why do economists still assume consumers make rational choices? It would seem to me that people tend to make irrational choices: Who to vote for, what to buy, etc... If people make decisions based on transparency and information available to them, then surely the fact that most information is still asymmetrical, as well as distorted by biased reports, and is generally opaque, then how can economists accurately predict that consumers will make rational choices when they obviously are mostly irrational.

Harrison

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I'm am regularly hearing about the inflation of food prices. It was my understanding that "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon." Is this a misunderstanding or just a mix up of terms?

Jarrod Myrick

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favorite movies randomly as they come to mind

J.

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Some believers in the European model maintain that the US resolves its unemployment problem by putting a (comparatively) large part of its population in prison. The US figures on unemployment would look much worse compared to Europe if those people were not behind the bars (the assumption is, of course, they would be unemployed).

Could you evaluate the claim? It has been mentioned in the comments section already but a stand-alone discussion would be nice.

John M.

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Your IO reading list posting today brought this to mind: I'd love to see your Top Ten list of (any category) history books, defined as (1) solid history, and (2) ripping good reads.

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