StateMaster
NationMaster, a fun site for quick statistics on countries, is now joined by StateMaster a database of statistics on the US States.
Arctic Monkeys
On my first listen I didn’t believe the ‘ype. By the twentieth listen I was believing, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I Am Not is a great CD. Reminscent of The Who but popped up a notch with reggae and ska beats, Arctic Monkeys are a garage band from Sheffield, England. Original guitar licks and the lead singer’s Yorkshire accent give the album real flavor. I also like that it’s thematically whole, revolving around bars, bouncers, and the desperation and self-loathing that comes from trying to pick up women. I like this:
Last night these two bouncers
one of em’s alright
The other one’s a scary
His way or no way
totalitarian
And this:
Everybody’s trying to crack the jokes and that to make you smile
Those that claim that they’re not showing off are drowning in denial
But they’re not half as bad as me, say anything and I’ll agree
Cause when it comes to acting up, I’m sure I could write the book
Yeah, I’ve been there.
The Great Editors
After 18 months and repeated promises from the journal editors, I had no referee reports and reluctantly withdrew my article. I had never withdrawn an article before but this was the second time I had been ill-treated at this journal. I thought about venting my anger here but remembering Ayn Rand’s dictum that justice is about rewarding virtue more than punishing vice I decided to take the high road and reflect on some truly great editors.
Top of my list is Sam Peltzman at the Journal of Law and Economics. In my experience, JLE referees are very good but none better than Peltzman himself. Peltzman reads submissions and usually returns his own comments. Every paper I have ever submitted to the JLE has been improved because of Peltzman’s comments.
Aaron Edlin at the Berkeley Press Journals. I’m a big fan of the BePress journals; referee reports in 60 days, submit once and be evaluated for four journals simultaneously, electronic submission and referee reports and an opportunity to ask the referees questions anonymously. The technology wouldn’t work without a great editor, however, and Edlin writes very thoughtful, intelligent comments, he also has a good sense for quality and what is important.
Robert Higgs at the Independent Review. No one helps an author improve not just the quality of argument but the quality of writing more than Bob Higgs. Working with him is always a pleasure (note that I am assistant editor at the Review as well as a contributing author). The Independent Review is not a top academic journal but it’s an intelligent blend of philosophy, politics and economics that is accessible to laypeople as well as to academics.
Ed Glaeser, Robert Barro, and Lawrence Katz at the Quarterly Journal of Economics. I’ve published several papers at the JLE, the BePress journals and the Independent Review but I have only rejections to show for my submissions to the QJE. Nevertheless, I hold the editors in high esteem because they read submissions before they go to referees and they send back quick responses. It’s one thing to be rejected with a stupid report after 12 months it’s quite another to be told, interesting paper but not for us, try at journal X after just 3 days (I have heard that Barro used to reject papers in hours but this made people mad so now he holds them for at least a few days). The QJE is the most interesting journal in economics today.
The great editors are productive and generate quick turnarounds and they share some other virtues. The great editors have personality and verve and it shows in their journals – the journals I have mentioned are not just collections of articles they are a reflection of the editor’s vision about what economics is and where it should be going. Finally, unlike many others, the great editors in my view don’t model themselves as bouncers whose job is to prevent the riff-raff from penetrating the sanctum sanctorum. Instead, the great editors encourage bold ideas and work to raise the marginal product of their authors and of the profession.
Comments are open if you want to nominate some of the other great editors.
The Gender Imbalance Disequilibrium
China’s gender imbalance is now 117 boys for every 100 girls and for second and third children (when allowed) the imbalance can be as high as 151 boys for every 100 girls. Millions of men, perhaps 15% of the population, may not be able to find wives.
"The world has never before seen the likes of the
bride shortage that will be unfolding in China in the decades ahead," says AEI demographer Nicholas Eberstadt.
The Chinese government has responded by making selective abortion illegal and by giving significant bonuses to parents of girls. Yet blackmarket ultrasound is available and, according to 60 Minutes, in demand. Some reports suggest that the gender imbalance is increasing.
Yet from the perspective of evolutionary fitness having a girl in China is now much better than having a boy. Boys who can’t find mates won’t be giving their parents any grandchildren. Will it take a generation of parents without grandchildren for evolutionary incentives to kick in? Why hasn’t this happened already? How hard is it to figure out that having a boy, especially if you are poor, means the end of your lineage?
Hat tip to Paul Rubin for pointing out this puzzle to me.
MR Logo Contest!
Is there a market in everything? We hope so because Marginal Revolution would like a logo! The logo would jazz up our banner and be used on other websites. You can find some examples of what we have in mind here.
Tyler and I are consumers of art but not very good suppliers. We are much more confident in our readers and their friends and contacts so we are holding a contest. Send us your logo ideas.
The best idea will win $250 and potential fame and glory!
The contest will be open for two weeks.
The Tyranny of the Alphabet
In economics there is a norm that authors are listed alphabetically. The norm is surprisingly strong and deviations are punished. On my first paper with Eric Helland we tossed for first authorship, I won, and we noted the names were listed in random order. Believe it or not, Helland’s tenure committee grilled him on this point and as a result we switched to alphabetical ordering on all our subsequent papers. Citation counts, however, are historically assigned only to the first listed author and later listed authors are often buried under the et al. monster.
Do you think these effects are too tiny to matter? Take a look at the Yellow Pages and see how many firms choose A-names, AA-names, and AAA-names. Even more surprisingly, a new paper (free, working version, Winter 06, JEP) demonstrates that these effects have important consequences for careers in economics. Faculty members in top departments with surnames beginning with letters earlier in the alphabet are substantially more likely to be tenured, be fellows of the Econometrics Society, and even win Nobel prizes (let’s see, Arrow, Buchanan Coase…hmmm). No such effects are found in psychology where the alphabetical norm is not followed.
I’m delighted that my young co-author, Amanda Agan, has a great career ahead of her but if Helland wins the Nobel I am going to be very annoyed.
It’s time to end the tyranny of the alphabet! The AER should announce a name randomization policy unless authors otherwise instruct. Barring that, I wish henceforth be known as Alex Abarrok.
Rating the Millennium Challenge Corporation
Lord Kelvin said "If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it." He’s right which is one reason the explosion in measurement in development economics and foreign aid is so important. Reagrding the latter the Millennium Challenge Corporation awards aid to countries that perform well on a set of variables such as political rights, civil liberties, the costs of starting a business, trade policy and other variables. It’s important that most of these variables are measured by outside organizations and not the countries getting the aid.
How well has the MCC worked? In a new paper Doug Johnson and Tristan Zajonc find that candidates for MCC aid improve their performance to a greater degree on more indicators than similar control countries. Johnson and Zajonc have a great graph which illustrates one of their research designs. The first panel is candidate and control countries before the MCC when we would not expect many differences, the second panel is the same countries after the MCC was put in place when we would expect the MCC to have an incentive effect on candidate but not control countries, the last panel subtracts the differences in the second panel from the differences in the first to arrive at the difference-in-difference estimate – most of the gains are positive and fairly large.
We do not yet have any evidence that improvement on the indicators will improve growth or reduce poverty but at least we are measuring, the first to step to improving.
Contingent Fees for Julia Roberts (and Erin Brockovich)
Here is more from my debate with Jim Copland on contingent fees.
Movie stars also work on contingent fee (they get paid a share of
the gross). Using your argument this causes them to go for films with a
low probability of a high payoff – the potential blockbuster that alas
is usually a dud. If we regulated fees so that movie stars could be
paid only a straight salary that would certainly change how movies are
financed. The studios (big law firms), for example, would become more
important. A few actors (lawyers) would make less money but the average
actor would make more (if you don’t give people a lottery ticket you
have to increase their average salary). But would changing how actors
are paid really improve the quality of the movies? I doubt it.If you want better movies there’s only one solid method, attack the
source of the problem, and raise the taste level of the public. If the
public demands Armageddon
that is what they will get. The same is true of improving the tort
system – fiddling around with fees won’t do it – we need to address the
substantive issues that give judges and juries a taste for bad law.
A Debate on Contingent Fees
Jim Copland and I debate contingent fees at PointofLaw.com. I was pleased with this statement of my position:
If a lawyer and her client want to contract in Lira what business is
it of the state to interfere? If the lawyer and client agree on an
incentive plan, why should that be regulated? Do we want to regulate
contingent fees in other areas? A money-back guarantee, for example, is
a contingent fee – you pay only if the product is a winner. A tip is a
contingent fee – you pay only if the service was good.True, not all contracts should be respected – we don’t enforce
contracts against the public interest – nevertheless, my spider-sense
starts to tingle whenever reformers of any stripe try to abrogate
private contracting.
Flat Buster
Ed Leamer reviews Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat.
When the Journal of Economic Literature asked me to write a review of The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman, I responded with enthusiasm, knowing it wouldn’t take much effort on my part. As soon as I received a copy of the book, I shipped it overnight by UPS to India to have the work done. I was promised a one-day turn-around for a fee of $100. Here is what I received by e-mail the next day: “This book is truly marvelous. It is perhaps the greatest book ever written. It will surely change the course of human
history.” That struck me as possibly accurate but a bit too short and too generic to make the JEL happy, and I decided, with great disappointment, to do the work myself.
Don’t let the opening fool you, in the course of much fun at Friedman’s expense Leamer does a superb job of reviewing economic geography, trade theory, and recent economic history. And lest you think he picks easy targets, Paul Samuelson and others come in for some knocks as well.
Hat tip to Prashant Kothari at the Indian Economic Blog.
Against Transcendence
Deirdre McCloskey gave the inaugural James M. Buchanan Lecture last week, The Hobbes Problem: From Machiavelli to Buchanan. It was a good start to the series, eloquent, learned, and heartfelt. McCloskey argued that the Hobbesian programme of building the polis on prudence alone, a program to which the moderns, Rawls, Buchanan, Gauthier and others have contributed is barren. A good polis must be built upon all 7 virtues, both the pagan and transcendent, these being courage, justice, temperance, and prudence but also faith, hope and love (agape).
In the lecture, McCloskey elided the difficult problems of the transcendent virtues especially as they apply to politics (I expect a more complete analysis in the forthcoming book). Faith, hope, and love sound pleasant in theory but in practice there is little agreement on how these virtues are instantiated. It was love for their eternal souls that motivated the inquisitors to torture their victims. President Bush wants to save Iran…with nuclear bombs. Faith in the absurd is absurd. Thanks but no thanks.
Since we can’t agree on the transcendent virtues injecting them into politics means intolerance and division. Personally, I’d be happy to see the transcendent virtues fade away but I know that’s
unrealistic. The next best thing, therefore, is to insist that the transcendent virtues be reserved for civil society and at all costs be kept out of politics. The pagan virtues alone provide room for agreement in a cosmpolitan society, a society of the hetereogeneous.
Of course, in all this I follow Voltaire:
Take a view of the Royal Exchange in London, a place more venerable
than many courts of justice, where the representatives of all nations
meet for the benefit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the
Christian transact together, as though they all professed the same
religion, and give the name of infidel to none but bankrupts. There
the Presbyterian confides in the Anabaptist, and the Churchman depends
on the Quaker’s word. At the breaking up of this pacific and free
assembly, some withdraw to the synagogue, and others to take a glass.
This man goes and is baptized in a great tub, in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: that man has his son’s foreskin cut off,
whilst a set of Hebrew words (quite unintelligible to him) are mumbled
over his child. Others retire to their churches, and there wait for the
inspiration of heaven with their hats on, and all are satisfied.If one religion only were allowed in England, the Government would
very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would
cut one another’s throats; but as there are such a multitude, they all
live happy and in peace.
French economics
Earlier I wrote that French students need more Bastiat and less Foucault. Supporting evidence is provided by The International Herald Tribune which notes:
In a 22-country survey published in January, France was the only nation
disagreeing with the premise that the best system is "the free-market
economy." In the poll, conducted by the University of Maryland, only 36
percent of French respondents agreed, compared with 65 percent in
Germany, 66 percent in Britain, 71 percent in the United States and 74
percent in China (!, AT)…."The question of how economics is taught in France, both at the bottom
and at the top of the educational pyramid, is at the heart of the
current crisis," said Jean-Pierre Boisivon, director of the Enterprise
Institute…"In France we are still stuck in 1970s Keynesian-style economics – we
live in the world of 30 years ago," he said. …And then there are the textbooks. One, published by Nathan and widely
used by final-year students, has this to say on p. 137: "One must
analyze the salary as purchasing power that you could not cut without
sparking a deflationary spiral and thus higher unemployment." Another
popular textbook, published by La Découverte, asks on p. 164: "Are
there still enough jobs for everyone?" It then suggests that the state
subsidize jobs in the public sector: "We can seriously envisage this
because our economy allows us already to support a large number of
unemployed people."These arguments were frequently used on the streets in recent weeks,
where many protesters said raising salaries and subsidizing work was a
better way to cut joblessness than flexibility.
Hat tip to Peter Gordon who is teaching in Paris but finds his students considerably more sophisticated.
Charlie and the Missing Link
From Boing Boing Blog. Related story here.
The Shangri-La Diet
Seth Roberts’ diet book, The Shangri-La Diet has just been published. Actually, the Shangri-La Diet isn’t really a diet, it’s a method of suppressing appetite. Roberts argues that the body follows a simple heuristic – when calories are tasty they must be plentiful so turn up the appetite and stock up when the fruit is on the tree. But if calories taste like cardboard then times must be bad (why else would you be eating cardboard?) so turn the appetite down and use up those fat stores. If you had to eat cardboard to lose weight the diet wouldn’t be very appealing but Roberts found that a few hundred calories of extra-light olive oil or sugar water are enough to turn the appetite weigh down (pun intended.)
The book is a quick read and in addition to the diet itself there are interesting asides about science, self-experimentation, the obesity epidemic and other topics.
Don’t take my word for it, however. The great thing about Roberts’ methods is that you will know whether they work within a day or two. Buy the book, try it out, you have a lot to lose!
Addendum: Long-time readers may recall that I wrote a brief profile of Berkeley psychologist Roberts and his novel self-experiments. That profile turned out to be one link in a chain that led to the present book (I am kindly mentioned in the acknowledgments.).
Bias at the New York Times
The Times has a biased article on school vouchers. Surprisingly, the bias is in favor of vouchers. Oh sure, there’s the usual crazed principal sounding like a cross between Che Guevera and Andrea Dworkin as she attacks vouchers for "raping the public schools of students and resources." Also, I would have liked a better review of the evidence which is strongly in favor of vouchers. Nevertheless, the overwhelming impression of private schools left by the article is delightfully positive.
It’s the stories of little boys and girls sadly left behind by the public schools but now attending private schools like the one "near a verdant hill of churches" that tell the tale. And how about this to bring a tear to your eye?
Breanna Walton, 8, rises before dawn for the long bus ride from
Northeast Washington, "amongst the crime and drugs and all that," in
the words of her mother, April Cole Walton, to Rock Creek
International, near Georgetown University. There, she learns Spanish
with the children of lawyers and diplomats.
The best is left to last:
"I’ll probably go to Washington Latin," said Jhontelle Johnson,
setting her sights on a new charter school opening in August. If not,
she said, "I’d probably be home-schooled."A teacher’s aide, Sheonna Griffin, looked askance. "You don’t like public schools?" she asked the child.
Jhontelle turned back, her young eyes flashing. "You can’t make me go," she said.
Sadly, in most of the country they can.