Advice for planning a wedding

by  Tyler Cowen in

A friend, and a prospective consumer of Hot Pot, inquires for tips on planning a wedding.  I will offer a few:

1. Non-contractibility is a bigger problem than you think.  You can agree on the number of people, and the amount you will spend on flowers, but ex post many questions will pop up at the margin.  One of the two persons will care more about the right answer than the other.  One party will be more willing to work on the wedding than the other.  Contract in advance for a method of disagreement resolution, not just on the details of the wedding.  Get ready for the fact that one person cares less about the wedding than the other and realize this is not the same as caring less about the marriage.

2. Refuse to accept the intransitivity of indifference: "If we invite Uncle Fester, we surely can't turn down Auntie Mame," etc.  Just say no and (in vain) expect our federal government to do the same.

3. The purchases are a classic Hansonian "showing that you care" problem and the capitalist suppliers are not on your side.  Early, up front, do something to show that you don't care.  Buy a cheap paper cup.  Relish the feeling.  Accept it.  Celebrate it.  Then let the other person see you still care.  Break in the idea of showing that you don't care.

4. Googling to "advice for planning a wedding" is a nightmare of P > MC commercial promotions, not just in the ads but also in the main search results.  Rely more on the reader advice, in the comments section, from a very good economics blog.

What am I forgetting?

Affiliation vs. charity

by  Tyler Cowen in

Or are people trying to encourage the production of a public good?  Here is David Sedaris:

"A couple of books ago, I put a tip jar on my signing table and I made over $4,000 on my tour … I told people it was all for me to spend on candy. They were delighted because it’s funny to give money to someone who doesn’t need it. If there had been a beggar outside the bookstore, at the end of the evening, he might have had 75 cents. Whereas at the end of my best evening in Dallas [I had] $530 in tips."

For the pointer I thank Bob Cottrell.

Legally protected catchphrases for star athletes (and coaches)

by  Tyler Cowen in

Pat Riley obtained a trademark for the term “three-peat” in 1989, when he coached the Los Angeles Lakers.

From football:

[Terrell] Owens wrote a children’s book, had a breakfast cereal named for him, made guest appearances on several television shows and commercials, and in 2009 starred in a VH1 reality show, “The T. O. Show.” In addition to registering “I Love Me Some Me,” he has also sought protection for “Getcha Popcorn Ready” and a logo featuring his initials, T. O.

The full story, interesting throughout, is here.

United States fact of the day

by  Tyler Cowen in

In 2009 40% of U.S. imports and exports was ‘related-party trade’ –”trade by U.S. companies with their subsidiaries abroad as well as trade by U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies with their parent companies.” That means companies are effectively trading with themselves, so they can choose which side of the transaction books the profits.

Here is more, from Michael Mandel.

Peter Orszag update

by  Tyler Cowen in

Former Obama administration budget director Peter Orszag is joining Citigroup's global banking division, the bank said Thursday.

Orszag will hold the title of vice chairman, and has been tapped to serve in the bank's Senior Strategic Advisory Group, which includes some of Citi's (C, Fortune 500) most senior bankers.

The story is here; didn't he used to own them?  I guess labor is the more lucrative class after all.

*Rush: Why You Need and Love the Rat Race*

by  Tyler Cowen in

The author is Todd Buchholz and it offers a valuable corrective to many accounts of zero- and negative-sum games:

I began to tear apart my old book manuscript and develop a new and controversial idea: the happiness comes from the rushing around.  We feel better chasing the tails, even if we never catch them.  The hunt makes us happier.  I began to write at a furious pace, feeling that I was knocking down false prophets who speak from pulpits, pits, classrooms, and yoga mats and make their followers feel guilty about trying to to eke out some success in a chaotic world.

You can pre-order it here.  I agree with the main thesis.  My question is this: if there is some value in butting your head against the wall, do the "false prophets" and their preaching make us happy too?

What’s the best predictor of sex partners?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Restrict the inquiry to heterosexual men in the United States.  To be sure, famous rock stars have a lot of opportunities, but that is just one small corner of the distribution.  Which variable is the best predictor for the population as a whole?  Patrons of prostitutes do not count.

You might rush in and claim "income" or "status" and maybe those are the correct answers.  But we're talking unconditional predictors here, and men with high income and status are a) often older, and b) often busy working.  I'm not ready to sign off on those answers and anecdotally, when I think of the people I know, I don't quite see it.  (It may be more true in Latin America, for instance, and that is one reason why visiting American tourists don't always succeed there.  They first need to be certified by a local of high income or status, but instead they make some kind of foolish direct charge.)

"Facility with women" is too vague empirically and in some cases verges on the tautological.  Maybe this is the most powerful variable but then I wish to re-ask the question and consider what variable predicts facility with women.

Any takers?

Assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen in

1. Will Wilkinson on Bartels.

2. Pavement (pdf, and not the band).

3. New purple octopus.  And sneezing snub-nosed monkey.

4. Dave Weigel on Randy Barnett.

5. Update on the Wolfers-Price NBA referee bias paper.

6. Controversial RCTs for social welfare programs.

7. Law and the Multiverse, a blog about superheroes.

8. John Taylor's new critique of stimulus.

9. Update on the "doc fix."

“Why work?”

by  Tyler Cowen in

Here's a claim, with concrete numbers, that:

"a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year."

That's after various government benefits and taxes, but the calculation seems incorrect to me.  For instance, should the Medicaid and CHIP benefits of the poorer household actually be valued — to the user — at $16,500 a year?  (Is that number coming from some kind of cost basis?  If so, is it adjusted for the age of the Medicaid recipients to rule out nursing home expenditures?)  Is the $60,000 per year family receiving employer-supplied health insurance?  The assumption seems to be that they do not.

Still, even if you make adjustments this is a scary comparison.  I'd like to see a more exact calculation of the implicit marginal tax rates of the poor, as they climb from say 15k a year through the 60k range.  Does anyone know of such a table?

For the pointer I thank CC.

Addendum: Andrew Gelman comments.

The fiscal response to hurricanes

by  Tyler Cowen in

…in the eleven years following a hurricane an affected county receives additional non-disaster government transfers of $70 per capita per year. Private insurance-related transfers over the same time period average only $3.60 per capita per year. These results suggest that a non-trivial portion of the negative impact of hurricanes is absorbed by existing social safety net programs.

That is from Tatyana Deryugina. who is currently on the job market from MIT.

Elsewhere from the MIT students, here is Daniel Keniston's paper on price bargaining in the rickshaw market, and whether fixed prices would be better (they would exclude some low valuation users, it turns out).  You'll find all the MIT job market candidates, and their papers, here.