Markets in everything

by  Tyler Cowen in

Intentionally flawed goods:

Artist Jeremy Hutchison commissioned a series of intentionally incorrect products from factories around the world.

“I asked them to make me one of their products, but to make it with an error,” Hutchison explains. “I specified that this error should render the object dysfunctional. And rather than my choosing the error, I wanted the factory worker who made it to choose what error to make. Whatever this worker chose to do, I would accept and pay for.”

Hutchison received a comb without tines…

A change in regime?

by  Tyler Cowen in

In their newly released study, the Northeastern economists found that since the recovery began in June 2009 following a deep 18-month recession, “corporate profits captured 88 percent of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1 percent” of that growth.

Here is more.  The normal recovery pattern is more skewed toward capital than you might think, but this particular gradient is unprecedented as far as I know.

What I’ve been reading

by  Tyler Cowen

1. Andrew Mango, Ataturk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey.  A pleasurable read and full of information.  For me it was most useful as a foreign policy history of Turkey, more than a biography of Ataturk himself.  One implication is that Turkey won’t be making too many more concessions on the global stage, or for that matter with the Kurds.

2. Virginia Woolf, On Being Ill.  This is insanely good, and I can’t believe I had never read it before.  It’s super short, but a thrilling reading experience at every word.  It’s in the “jaw hits floor” category.

3. Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930.  The best history of electrical infrastructure which I have found.  It is very good on explaining the difficulties in organizing an entire economy around electricity and why it took so long.  It is also fascinating on why the English lagged behind the Germans and Americans in the transition to electricity, in large part because of local interest group politics.  It sheds light on the “mystery” of British decline.  A long, nerdy book, with unintelligible Cooper Union-like diagrams, I loved it.  It’s one of mankind’s most stirring stories.

4. Owen Hatherley, A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain.  I didn’t enjoy this book, so I didn’t read much of it, but I thought it was splendid in conception.  It requires some working knowledge of British urban landscapes and I, for one, have never been to Sheffield.  It’s a smartly written conceptual survey of the empty buildings that have come to populate British cities and I am sorry that I wasn’t up to it.

Papers about robot vacuum cleaner personalities

by  Tyler Cowen in

There are some, and they are important:

In this paper we report our study on the user experience of robot vacuum cleaner behavior. How do people want to experience this new type of cleaning appliance? Interviews were conducted to elicit a desired robot vacuum cleaner personality. With this knowledge in mind, behavior was designed for a future robot vacuum cleaner. A video prototype was used to evaluate how people experienced the behavior of this robot vacuum cleaner. The results indicate that people recognized the intended personality in the robot behavior. We recommend using a personality model as a tool for developing robot behavior.

A summary discussion is here, interesting throughout.  From this paper you can surmise a bit about the origins of religion, the seen and the unseen, and the demand for conspiracy theories, in addition to robot vacuum cleaners.

There is No Great Stagnation

by  Tyler Cowen in

Greenhouses lined with genetically modified marijuana sit on a mountainside just an hour ride from Cali, Colombia, where farmers say the enhanced plants are more powerful and profitable.

One greenhouse owner said she can sell the modified marijuana for 100,000 pesos ($54) per kilo (2.2 pounds), which is nearly 10 times more than the price she can get for ordinary marijuana.

Here is more and for the pointer I thank MT.

Coasean markets in everything (the culture that was Sydney)

by  Tyler Cowen in

From a distance Sydney may seem like one of the world’s most desirable places to call home: a sparkling harbour, enticing beaches and a climate to die for. It’s regularly rated as one of world’s 10 most liveable cities. But, as of Friday, the state government of New South Wales will pay residents A$7,000 (£4,500) to leave it.

It’s part of a new scheme to boost the population and economy of country areas.

Here is more and for the pointer I thank Bruno Hernan.  Of course by global standards Sydney isn’t crowded at all; this also relates to an earlier Megan McArdle post about whether we are willing to let our cities become much more dense.

Signaling vs. credentialism

by  Tyler Cowen in

From Arnold Kling:

The relationship between education and earnings is not entirely market driven. Within the government sector, pay grade is affected by education levels. Government also has educational credentials that affect many professions, including teaching, health care, and law. That is why I do not look to signaling as the explanation for the returns to schooling. For signals of ability, there are alternatives available. But strict credential requirements leave no alternative.

There is more at the link.  While I trust the best individual researchers in the area, I share Arnold’s fear that the macro-organization of the education field is not structured to produce totally objective results.  Still, a natural experiment showing a high signaling premium would yield accolades to its author and I still would like to see your nominations for the best work — and I do mean natural experiments — pointing in this direction.