Month: February 2019
Friday assorted links
2. Loss aversion in professional golf.
3. Women in economics, from Journal of Economic Perspectives, here, here, and here.
4. Economists in tech companies.
5. The university as sting operation.
6. “Today they’re priced at -$.05!
California Tortilla (@caltort) Tweeted:
BRR, IT’S COLD! This Thursday, warm up by paying the #windchill temperature for chips and #queso 🧀 For example, if it’s 8 degrees, the price will be 8 cents for the day. And if it’s -12 degrees, we will pay you 12 cents when ordering. Stay tuned for the price tomorrow morning! https://t.co/R1CM9aPYjHhttps://twitter.com/caltort/status/1090721328280285189?s=17
San Francisco fact of the day
San Francisco has more drug addicts than it has students enrolled in its public high schools, the city Health Department’s latest estimates conclude.
There are about 24,500 injection drug users in San Francisco — that’s about 8,500 more people than the nearly 16,000 students enrolled in San Francisco Unified School District’s 15 high schools
Here is more, via an MR reader.
Biotech on the Blockchain?
Bloomberg: In a novel approach for the biotechnology industry, small-cap company Agenus Inc. is aiming to raise $50 million to $100 million by issuing digital securities backed by future sales of an experimental cancer drug.
The digital securities will allow investors to bet on future sales of single products and will have a limited impact on shareholders’ equity, the company said. Agenus plans to offer at least 25 million of what it calls biotech electronic security tokens, or BESTs, to certain high-net-worth individuals and institutional investors starting Feb. 15.
I find this puzzling. First, why break out one drug from the rest of the firm? Investors generally want diversification and this is the opposite. Agenus is basically saying the rest of the firm is a value suck. Second, one of the virtues of the blockchain is that it allows for easy trade but the SEC requires that to buy these securities you must be an accredited investor and as such there are typically encumbrances on transfer. Thus, putting the securities on the blockchain doesn’t lower transaction costs, the way it could for other assets.
A lot of assets will be tokenized (i.e. securitized on the blockchain) in the future so this is an area to watch but to succeed tokenization must increase diversification and reduce transaction costs and this tokenization does neither.
California fact of the day
UCLA students call about 11,000 Uber and Lyft rides that never leave campus every week, raising concerns about the environmental impact of unnecessary trips.
Here is the article, via Jessica Roberts. I can’t say I am crazy about the framing however — have you tried walking across UCLA campus? You could just as soon write an article criticizing the people who don’t do bulk shopping, thereby creating unnecessary car trips to the store. Students who live on campus hardly seem like the worst environmental offenders or anywhere close to it.
Markets in everything those new service sector jobs
Advansun, 39, is a full-time “sleep writer” in Toronto. He writes with one goal in mind — to lull people off to la-la land.
Advansun publishes his bedtime stories for adults on the popular app Calm.com, where they are voiced by famous actors like Matthew McConaughey.
Calm.com says its roster of 120 sleep stories has been listened to more than 100 million times.
“I think we are putting a modern take to something that’s pretty timeless,” he says. “We are giving grownups permission to drift off to sleep to a story, and that’s not something a lot of people have thought about before.”
Advansun says the key is to get the attention of the listener and then “hold it gently” without ever jostling them awake. He maintains this is a tough balance to achieve … especially since Advansun is trained as a screenwriter (think plot twists, car chases and explosions).
“I certainly didn’t set out to write stories that put people to sleep,” he jokes. “I have sort of fallen into it, and I adore it. It’s not only quite rewarding, it is a great challenge as a writer.”
Here is the full story, via Michelle Dawson.