Month: September 2014

The deglobalisation of Scotland

Following ONS definitions, the official Scottish Executive figures give public sector employment in Scotland as 580,000 in 2012, having fallen slightly from its peak of 600,000 in 2009 (see Table 1). The 2012 figure represents 23.5 per cent of the total employed population. But there is good reason to suppose that these figures are a considerable underestimate given the amount of out-sourcing and publicly-funded but ‘non-state’ employment. Buchanan et al. suggest that adjusting for these boundary problems would inflate the figure for Scotland (for 2007) by almost a third, from the official figure of 580,000 (including financial institutions) to 772,000. As it happens, the official 2012 figure is the same as the official figure for 2007,  so adjusting the later figure in the same proportion would suggest again a total of 772,000, 31 per cent of the total in employment. These figures seem broadly compatible with those provided by the Centre for Cities on a city basis, which give the Dundee figure as 38 per cent and that for Glasgow as 30 per cent.

This growth of public sector employment is part of the process of de-globalisation evident in Scotland as an accompaniment to de-industrialisation.

That is from Jim Tomlinson, there is more here, via www.macrodigest.com.

Assorted links

1. Daniel Drezner on the history of the gold standard.

2. Comparing the mental abilities of Scrabble and crossword champions.

3. Shabbat plus cell phones: “In the future I would definitely like a day of rest without technology,” said the teenager

4. “full rationality dictates that people must “anti-imitate” some of those they observe…

5. Income inequality and stagnation are hurting state tax revenue.

6. The Great Unraveling.

The Case for Open Borders

Dylan Matthews summarizes the The Case for Open Borders drawing on an excellent interview with Bryan Caplan. Here is one bit from the interview:

Letting someone get a job is not a kind of charity. It’s not a welfare program. It’s just the government leaving people alone to go and make something out of their lives. When most people are on earth are dealt such a bad hand, to try to stop them from bettering their condition seems a very cruel thing to do to someone.

My elevator pitch has no economics in it, because the economics is actually too subtle to really explain in an elevator pitch. If I had a little bit more time, I would say, “What do you think the effects for men have been of more women in the workforce?”

Are there some men who are worse off? Sure. But would we really be a richer society if we kept half the population stuck at home? Isn’t it better to take people who have useful skills and let them do something with it, than to just keep them locked up someplace where their skills go to waste?

Isn’t that not just better for them, but better for people in general, if we allow people to use their skills to contribute to the world instead of keeping them shut up someplace where they just twiddle their thumbs or do subsistence agriculture or whatever?

On the economics, David Roodman has a characteristically careful and comprehensive review written for Givewell of the evidence on the effect of immigration on native wages. He writes, “the available evidence paints a fairly consistent and plausible picture”:

  • There is almost no evidence of anything close to one-to-one crowding out by new immigrant arrivals to the job market in industrial countries. Most studies find that 10% growth in the immigrant “stock” changes natives’ earnings by between –2% and +2% (@Longhi, Nijkamp, and Poot 2005@, Fig 1; @Peri 2014@, Pg 1). Although serious questions can be raised about the reliability of most studies, the scarcity of evidence for great pessimism stands as a fact (emphasis added, AT)….
  • One factor dampening the economic side effects of immigration is that immigrants are consumers as well as producers. They increase domestic demand for goods and services, perhaps even more quickly than they increase domestic production (@Hercowitz and Yashiv 2002@), since they must consume as soon as they arrive. They expand the economic pie even as they compete for a slice. This is not to suggest that the market mechanism is perfect—adjustment to new arrivals is not instantaneous and may be incomplete—but the mechanism does operate.
  • A second dampener is that in industrial economies, the capital supply tends to expand along with the workforce. More workers leads to more offices and more factories. Were receiving economies not flexible in this way, they would not be rich. This mechanism too may not be complete or immediate, but it is substantial in the long run: since the industrial revolution, population has doubled many times in the US and other now-wealthy nations, and the capital stock has kept pace, so that today there is more capital per worker than 200 years ago.
  • A third dampener is that while workers who are similar compete, ones who are different complement. An expansion in the diligent manual labor available to the home renovation business can spur that industry to grow, which will increase its demand for other kinds of workers, from skilled general contractors who can manage complex projects for English-speaking clients to scientists who develop new materials for home building. Symmetrically, an influx of high-skill workers can increase demand for low-skill ones. More computer programmers means more tech businesses, which means more need for janitors and security guards. Again, the effect is certain, though its speed and size are not.
  • …one way to cushion the impact of low-skill migration on low-skill workers already present is to increase skilled immigration in tandem.

Plaudits are due to Givewell. While others are focused on giving cows, Givewell is going after the really big gains.

Black ebola markets in everything

A black market for an Ebola treatment derived from the blood of survivors is emerging in the West African countries experiencing the worst outbreak of the virus on record, the World Health Organization said.

The United Nations health agency will work with governments to stamp out the illicit trade in convalescent serum, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told reporters today in Geneva, where the organization is based. There is a danger that such serums could contain other infections and wouldn’t be administered properly, Chan said.

The WHO is encouraging the use of properly obtained serum to treat current patients and said last week it should be a priority. A third U.S. missionary worker who was infected with Ebola in Liberia and flown to the U.S. for medical care was treated with blood transfusions from another American who recovered from the virus last month. Doctors hope the virus-fighting antibodies in the blood help the 51-year-old physician, Rick Sacra.

There is more here, and for the pointer I thank John Chilton.

Chitmahals

I had not known of these:

The Indo-Bangladesh enclaves, also known as the chitmahals (Bengali: ছিটমহল chitmôhol), sometimes called pasha enclaves, are the enclaves along the Bangladesh–India border, in Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.

There are 106 Indian enclaves and 92 Bangladeshi enclaves. Inside the main part of Bangladesh, 102 of these are first-order Indian enclaves, while inside the main part of India, 71 of these are Bangladeshi first-order enclaves. Further inside these enclaves are an additional 24 second order- or counter-enclaves (21 Bangladeshi, 3 Indian) and one Indian counter-counter-enclave, called Dahala Khagrabari #51. They have an estimated combined population between 50,000 and 100,000.

In September 2011, the Prime Ministers of the two countries (Manmohan Singh of India and Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh) signed an accord on border demarcation and exchange of adversely held enclaves; however, the Indian parliament has yet to ratify it. Under this intended agreement, the enclave residents could continue to reside at their present location or move to the country of their choice.

Here is the Wikipedia entry.  It now seems the ruling BJP party seems to want to take that 2011 agreement back.

Alastair Bonnett, in his new and excellent Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and other Inscrutable Geographies, notes that these enclaves are usually not supplied with public goods.  Furthermore:

In order to leave these tiny enclaves, the inhabitants have to obtain a visa to travel through the foreign territory that surrounds them.  But in order to obtain a visa they have to leave their enclave, since visas can only be obtained in cities many miles away.

And:

The Indian Enclave Refugees’ Association has been formed to lobby for the right to “return” to India.

Many of them are denied the right to settle in what is ostensibly their home country, namely India.

A robot to load your dishwasher

A robot unveiled today at the British Science Festival will be loading dishwashers next year, its developers claim.

“Boris” is one of the first robots in the world capable of intelligently manipulating unfamiliar objects with a humanlike grasp.

It was developed by scientists at the University of Birmingham.

The team also work with “Bob”, an autonomous robot who recently completed work experience at security firm G4S.

“This is Boris’ first public outing,” announced Professor Jeremy Wyatt of the School of Computer Science. The robot took five years to develop at a cost of £350,000.

Boris “sees” objects with depth sensors on its face and wrists. In 10 seconds it calculates up to a thousand possible ways to grasp a novel object with its five robotic fingers and plans a path of arm movements to reach its target, avoiding obstructions.

“It’s not been programmed to pick it up – it’s been programmed to learn how to pick it up,” explained Professor Wyatt.

There is more here, including a video.  For the pointer I thank Michelle Dawson.

The Fed on 9/11

Daily Kos has an excellent, long-read from Arliss Bunny on the FED’s actions around 9/11 to keep the financial system afloat:

[Roger] Ferguson, considered a deliberative and thoughtful man by his staff, settled into his office and turned on his television to keep track of the markets. When the second plane hit the World Trade Center no one had to tell Ferguson, he knew the country was under attack and he already knew that the attack was aimed at the financial backbone of the world, lower Manhattan. Ferguson declared an emergency and all over the Fed stunned staff found assurance in going through emergency procedures for which they had prepared. The Joint Y2K Committee Ferguson had so recently headed proved to be a windfall of emergency planning and the entire Fed system referred back to those decisions and the associated training throughout the 9-11 crisis. By the time employees could all hear the muffled thump coming from the direction of the Pentagon and smoke could be seen out the windows the staff had secured themselves and the premises and they had started to organize their war room. The President, George W. Bush, was still reading a children’s book.

At 9:25AM ET the Federal Aviation Administration ordered all planes grounded.

Even as all of Washington dithered between evacuating or sheltering-in-place fearing the rumored fourth plane, Ferguson was already worrying about the next disaster, the crash of the entire US financial system. Within forty-one minutes of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center Ferguson issued as simple clear statement, via Fedwire, to all member banks and institutions assuring them that the federal fund transfer system was “fully operational” and that Federal Reserve Banks would “stay open until an orderly closing could be achieved.” In other words, we are here and we are fully functional. And that was just the first 41 minutes. Alan Greenspan was still on a plane with no knowledge of events and the President was just getting to Air Force One.

Later she discusses how in the days following the crash the Fed came up with extraordinary ways of dealing with transportation issues. In Chicago, for example, armored truck carriers refused to deliver cash to downtown banks because of fears that the Sears Tower was a target so Fed employees, she implies (naturally they don’t want to talk about this very much) delivered millions of dollars in cash in their own cars.

Read the whole thing.

Does economics imply a narrowing gender gap?

In my latest New York Times column for The Upshot, I look at some evidence on the gender gap.  Here is the bad news:

In one set of these experiments, called the dictator game, women were found to be more generous than men. Players were given $10 and allowed but not required to hand out some of it to a hidden and anonymous partner. Women, on average, gave away $1.61 of the $10, whereas men gave away only 82 cents.

In another test, called the ultimatum game, one player received $10 and then decided how much of it to offer to a partner. (Let’s say the first player suggests, “$8 for me, $2 for you.” If the respondent accepts the offer, that’s what each gets. If the respondent is offended by the unequal division or dislikes it for any other reason, he or she may refuse, and then no one gets anything.)

The depressing news was this: Both men and women made lower offers, on average, when the responder was female. Male proposers offered an average of $4.73 to male respondents, but only $4.43 to women. More painful yet was the behavior of female proposers, who, on average, offered $5.13 to men but only $4.31 to women. It seems that women were seen as softies who were willing to settle for less — and the discrimination was worse coming from the women themselves.

I am nonetheless optimistic about longer-term trends, and here is one specific example I give:

As a former chess player, I am struck by the growing achievements of women in this great game — one in which men were once said to have an overwhelming intrinsic advantage. (Among the unproven contentions was that men were better at pattern recognition.) Although women were never barred from touching the chess pieces, strong female players were few in number.

These days, many more women play very well, and the gap between the top men and women in the game is narrowing. The main driver of the change appears to be that more and more women are playing chess, creating a cycle of positive reinforcement that encourages ever more women to excel. We’ve seen a similar dynamic in the workplace, as more women have made great strides in the areas of law, medicine and academia. And this process may spread to other sectors of the economy as well, such as technology industries.

Do read the whole thing.

*Party Man, Company Man*

The author is Joe Zhang and the subtitle is Is China’s State Capitalism Doomed?  Here is the summary of his conclusions:

1. The state sector remains the dominant part of the Chinese economy.

2. In the past decade, China has erased most (if not all) of the liberalization of the previous two decades.  As a result, the state sector has become more dominant than it was a decade ago.

3. The state sector enjoys widespread public support in China, contrary to perceptions in the West.  there are political, social and cultural reasons for this “strange” situation.

4. The state sector and SOEs are constantly adapting to the public demand for transparency and efficiency.  As a whole, they do not necessarily underperform the private sector.  Indeed, due to systematic discrimination against the private sector, there is evidence to the contrary: the state sector has had a better financial track record in the past three decades.  Indeed, it is not fair to make comparisons given the unleveled playing field.

5. The many challenges China faces today need a robust and well-funded state sector.  At least that is, in my judgment, what the Chinese government and most members of the public think.  These challenges include social inequality, overpopulation, environmental damage, and the depletion of global resources.

I do not agree with every claim in this book, especially the normative ones, but this is one of the better places to go for a look at how the Chinese economy actually works.  Or doesn’t, as the case may be.

Red vs. white wine, at the state level

All but three states—Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa—buy more red than white, according to data compiled by online wine retailer Naked Wines. North Carolina, Mississippi, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are particularly fond of red varietals—the four buy red wine nearly 60 percent of the time, and white wine only 30 percent of the time. (The remaining roughly 10 percent account for sparkling and rose purchases).

What’s with the Midwest?  White wine to go with all that fish?  I don’t think so.  The full story, with further data, is here.

Co-opting Regulation for Profit

Regulations often increase monopoly power. Indeed, increasing monopoly power is often why regulations are enacted. In other cases, however, ostensibly neutral regulations are co-opted by entrepreneurs who spot an opportunity to leverage the regulation for profit. Derek Lowe points us to an interesting case of the latter involving drug pricing and the FDA.

Retrophin recently purchased the marketing rights to the drug Thiola and they are increasing the price from $1.50 per pill to over $30 per pill. Surprisingly, Thiola is off-patent. Ordinarily, we would expect such a large price increase to be met with entry and price pushed to marginal cost. To enter into the market, however, a generic producer must prove bio-equivalence which requires that the generic producer obtain a small quantity of the branded drug. Branded drug firms don’t like competition from generics and they try to impede the process but it’s typically not a big deal for a generic producer to obtain some of the branded drug for their bio-equivalence trials.

In 2007, however, the FDA was officially authorized to approve drugs conditional on the firm implementing a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS). The FDA approved thalidomide, for example, only if physicians signed a patient-physician agreement and enrolled each of their patient’s directly with the producer. Indeed, a unique prescription authorization number was required for each prescription which could be filled only at specially authorized pharmacies. The idea, of course, was to prevent anyone from taking thalidomide during pregnancy. The purpose of the regulation was probably not to create monopoly power but it didn’t take firms long to realize that REMS regulations could be co-opted. Simply put, a REMS agreement can make it illegal for generic firms to obtain a sample of the branded drug through ordinary channels. In the thalidomide agreement, for example, it’s even the case that all unused thalidomide must be returned to the producer! Retrophin is hoping to use a similar REMS strategy to keep generic competitors out of the market for Thiola.

Addendum: Derek’s post aroused the ire of the CEO of Retrophin and may have gotten him banned from reddit.

Javier Cercas, *Outlaws: A Novel*

This is so far my favorite novel in what I consider to be a very weak year for fiction.  Set in and near Barcelona, this story of a gang member and his confrontations with the law, as seen through the eyes of one not totally reliable narrator, reminds me a bit of Eric Ambler’s A Coffin for Dimitrios.  Here is one excerpt from the novel:

Let’s go, she said.  Where?, I asked, following her: she was wearing jeans, a white shirt, sneakers and her handbag strap across her chest, like twenty years ago when we’d meet up in La Font to go out and steal cars, snatch old ladies’ handbags and rob banks on the coast.

I also quite liked “Talking to Ourselves,” by Andrés Neuman: “Women who know what they want never want anything interesting.”