Which British authors were most popular in late nineteenth century India?
A sample of fourteen library catalogs, from across India, revealed that only two authors were in all fourteen: Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Sir Walter Scott. Apparently the embellished novel was popular.
In thirteen of the catalogs were Dickens, Disraeli, and Thackeray.
In twelve of the catalogs were Marie Corelli, F. Marion Crawford, Dumas, George Eliot, Charles Kingsley, Captain Frederick Marryat, G.W.M. Reynolds, and Philip Meadows Taylor.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was in eleven.
The figures are from the new and noteworthy, The Novel: Volume 1, History, Geography, and Culture, edited by Franco Moretti; this volume is a treasure trove of information about the history and early economics of the novel.
Why we talk
How much is communication of information the main purpose of speech? I can think of other reasons to speak:
1. We talk to signal loyalty, or disloyalty.
2. We talk to bond with others.
3. We talk because we are not very self-aware and we need an audience if we are to learn our own thoughts or make up our minds. Clark Durant points to Hamlet.
4. We talk so people may judge us, leading to efficient sorting.
5. We talk to see who will leave the room.
6. We talk because we are restless, nervous, or bored. Speech may relieve anxiety, or give the pretense of doing so.
Of course it depends on context, but I’ll put information communication at no more than fifteen percent of our chatter.
Grab bag of books
1. Vicki Howard, Brides, Inc.: American Weddings and the Business of Tradition. Weddings have become big business; this book tells you how and why.
2. Matthew D. Adler and Eric A. Posner, New Foundations of Cost-Benefit Analysis. There is not exactly a new thesis here, but it is the most intelligent discussion to date of the strengths and limits of cost-benefit analysis.
3. Nation-States and the Multinational Corporation, by Nathan M. Jensen. Rule of law and credibility, not low corporate taxes, are the key features in luring foreign investment. You pro-tax people might think this is good news, but it probably just means that the burden of those taxes falls on labor, or on consumers.
4. The Marketplace of Christianity, by Robert B. Ekelund, Robert Hebert, and Robert D. Tollison. This book is full of stimulating hypotheses, especially if you don’t flinch at chapters with titles like "The Counter-Reformation: Incumbent-Firm Reaction to Market Entry." The economics of religion remains one of the most exciting fields.
5. Democratic Constitutional Design and Public Policy: Analysis and Evidence, edited by Roger Congleton and Birgitta Swedenborg. This book offers the best minds in European public choice, Barry Weingast, and Roger.
The limits of philanthropy?
Unless the world is in for a nasty spill, the richest people likely will become even richer over the generations. Other than buying out or bribing African dictators, what else might the truly rich do with their money?
1. Build artificial islands, create jobs there, take in immigrants, and experiment.
2. Change their names to "Nemo," and hire mercenaries to intervene when Darfur-like situations get out of control.
3. Finance excellent movies just for the heck of it.
4. Send out self-replicating, solar powered von Neumann probes to explore the galaxy and look for life, or perhaps seed life (did anyone get a tax deduction for doing Earth?).
5. Create galactic spectacles which are obviously the work of intelligent beings, to advertise our presence to other civilizations, or future civilizations, throughout the galaxy.
What else?
Why I love Sweden
I won’t dwell on the beauty of Stockholm, the quality of the seafood, or the intelligence and good judgment of the people. Swedish women seem OK too, and Swedish Impressionist painting is underrated. I even liked the place in December. But what I enjoy most about Sweden is the sense of freedom.
Let’s be blunt: much of this freedom stems from government, and what you get is freedom from other people. People are not less free of the tax man, but in Sweden you don’t need other people very much to insure your economic well-being. You can do your own thing, without much fear (relatively speaking, of course) of personal oppression from others. You really can choose which personal relationships you wish to have. Autonomy reigns. The Swedish family is, of course, fractured. For all of its collectivist reputation, Sweden is the land of the true individualist, sometimes verging on atomism. At will you can go off into the woods and eat your lingonberries, weather of course permitting.
I would not want to live there, if only because my restless self needs a large country and lots of space for travel in multiple directions. Uppsala bored me in less than a day, Malmo was OK, but what next? The yikes factor kicks in. Latin America looks so far away.
Nor do I think that living in Sweden necessarily would be good for me. But when I look at it, I like it. I like seeing it. I think it is an important social experiment. And it is hard to argue that it has been bad for the Swedes. I also think the whole arrangement, tax payments and all, is no less voluntary (and probably more voluntary) than what we do in the United States. Some of that is the small country/homogeneity thing, some is simply that Swedes recognize their high quality way of life.
I’ve heard it said that "socialism is the religion of the Swedes." This is not quite correct, though it hints at an important truth. I think of "being Swedish" as the religion of the Swedes. And the more cosmopolitan they behave, the more they are partaking in this religion; don’t be fooled!
This "being Swedish" business is a wonderful religion for Sweden. It is not a good or possible religion for most of the rest of the world. And it is not a religion to which I have been or could be invited.
But Sweden (or should I say Stockholm?) remains one of the best places in the history of the world to date, and we are fooling ourselves if we don’t recognize that.
Video of a Steve Levitt talk
From 2004, on gangs and crime, access it here. Hat tip to Jason Kottke.
Assorted
1. Complete works of Charles Darwin, now on-line.
2. Truth markets, explained by Dubner.
3. The money says Republicans still might hold both Houses.
Sentences of wisdom
If Congress got rid of online gambling, how come the biggest online bet is whether voters will get rid of Congress?
Read more here.
Markets in everything: African dictator edition
Hmm…I had just been thinking about related ideas:
Sudanese billionaire Mo Ibrahim (of Celtel fame) has created a $5 million dollar cash prize for Africa’s most effective head of state.
Each
year the winning leader will, at the end of his term, get $5m (£2.7m)
over 10 years and $200,000 (£107,000) each year for life thereafter.
"We need to remove corruption and improve governance," Mr Ibrahim said.…The Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership will
be launched in London on Thursday… It will be available only to a
president who democratically transfers power to his successor. Harvard
University will do the measuring to see just how well the president has
served his or her people during their term in office.
Here is more, and thanks to Pablo for the pointer. The prize sounds too small, relative to the lure of corruption, but I see no reason not to try this idea.
How good is the Nordic model?
Jeffrey Sachs has written a new paper on the Nordic model, extending his Scientific American article in praise of the welfare state. It is listed as "not for quotation" so I won’t. I agree with much of the paper, but I would emphasize a few propositions more:
1. Many ideas and innovations are international public goods. This will make the Nordic model more sustainable over time. Swedish society doesn’t have to be that innovative, although of course sometimes it is.
2. Societies differ a great deal in their innate level of cooperativeness. This is a key to making the Nordic model work. I wouldn’t try the Swedish model in France, much less in the United States.
3. The Nordic countries generally take a light hand in regulation, capital income taxation, and many of the public welfare programs pay people to work and not to sit at home on their behinds. In fairness to Sachs, he does mention these points. Furthermore given the extensive subsidies to child care, which encourage female labor force
participation, the high marginal tax rates do not discourage labor supply as we might at first think.
4. Government policy is often most usefully thought of as endogenous. Higher levels of cooperativeness, and lower levels of corruption, mean that people will choose more government. The government they get will work better than government works elsewhere. The point is not that all choices are efficient, but rather there is a selection bias in the data we observe on government size and performance. Nordic welfare states are large, in part, because they work relatively well.
5. The long-term consequences of a slightly lower growth rate are in any case troubling, no matter how well a society works at any moment in time.
Here is my previous post on the Nordic model. Here is a post on Swedish stagnation. Excerpt: "I’ve been to Stockholm several times and loved it. That being said, how
attractive will this model remain when it offers only half of the per
capita income of the United States?"
Department of Hmm….
In the last quarter, Nokia sold 88.5 million phones to Apple’s 8.7
million iPods. If the Finns can convince just a fraction of buyers to
spring for music phones rather than iPods, they’ll trounce Steve Jobs
and co.
Read more here. "Trounce," of course, is a tricky word. Is the mark-up on cell phones as high? Would they cut into the iPod market or appeal to different buyers? Would content suppliers leave iTunes or just sell to both markets? Here is a good, short piece on the roots of the iPod appeal.
Which dead celebrities earn the most?
Here are the top ten:
1. Kurt Cobain
2. Elvis
3. Charles Schulz
4. John Lennon
5. Albert Einstein
6. Andy Warhol
7. Dr. Seuss
8. Ray Charles
9. Johnny Cash
10. J.R.R. Tolkien
Here is more information. I love "Aneurysm", but I am surprised that Cobain leads the list. I would have expected Schulz and Seuss at the top, followed by Elvis.
How did the British occupy India?
…today’s colonials fight back. Britain occupied India with a tiny force
because the Indians mostly let them, and on the rare occasions when
they rebelled the British (like all the other European colonial powers)
felt free to crush them in the most brutal manner imaginable.
No matter how we compare American and British brutalities (we dropped many bombs on Vietnam), I place greater stock in the railroad (later the car and bus) and the radio. In the early days of British control, most Indians couldn’t get within shouting distance of a fight if they wanted to. The Brits had only to control some key garrisoned cities and some trade routes. Local rulers did the rest. Radio, which spread in the 1920s, told people what was going on and cemented national consciousness. Those technologies heralded the later end of colonialism, with WWII hurrying along the new equilibrium.
Might some future technology might render colonialism more likely (NB: I am not saying "more desirable")? Extreme surveillance is one possiiblity, but this appears far off for poorer locales. More likely is simply that rich countries buy the loyalty of some (smaller) poor countries, as the French seem to have done with Martinique.
If the world’s very poor countries stay in Malthusian traps, how long will it be before wealthy philanthropists can try to "adopt a country"? Measured Haitian gdp, for instance, is only a few billion dollars a year (TC: don’t ask about the storms!). Yes many countries have laws against foreign investment and land ownership, but at some point a correct strategy can put the money to good use. Can an entire corrupt government simply be bought out? Just how much money, and what kind of plan, would a private philanthropist need each year to turn Haiti around, or at least bring it to the standards of Martinique?
Can a destructive storm increase measured gdp?
Say Katrina comes along and knocks down some hotels, which are then rebuilt.
We all know the "broken window fallacy" — this sequence of events is not good for the economy. But under what conditions will it increase measured gdp?
Under one view, the money spent rebuilding the hotels would otherwise have been spent buying shoes or something else. Measured gdp should not go up. See Alex’s comments below for more along these lines. (But note that Alex’s fifth paragraph makes a mistake. I am not just "buying a new CD," but rather a new CD is being produced, generating income, in the analogous example he sets out, just as a new hotel is being produced to replace the old one destroyed by the storm. He doesn’t come squarely to terms with how new output ever increases measured gdp. A second factual but not theoretical point is that most Katrina refugees are now earning more elsewhere.)
An alternative approach invokes the assumption of "gross substitutability," or more prosaically that new production attracts a greater expenditure than the relevant alternative. (Addendum: We also can speak of the velocity of money rising.) New production in general raises measured gdp. If a new hotel is built, why should the "gdp consequences" of that production depend on whether the lot had always been vacant, or a previous hotel on that lot was destroyed by a storm?
A further complication is that the hurricane destroys wealth. The loss of hotels induces negative income effects, which probably will lower measured gdp in other sectors of the economy. Natural disasters are not a good way to build up gdp in the longer run.
Many factors are at play. Will we consider Keynesian effects through a possible employment increase for rebuilding, or intertemporal substitution effects through a temporary boost in labor supply in repair industries? If the repairs dig into future productive capacities, short-run gdp is more likely to rise than long-run gdp.
Will natural disasters increase measured gdp in the short run, once we consider expenditure switching effects?
Your thoughts?
New Yorker article on microfinance and Yunnus
Here is the link. The second half of the article is more interesting than the first; here is one short bit:
Omidyar and his colleagues say that the biggest obstacle to
commercialization of the sector is philanthropic capital. They say that
it distorts the market–not only by filling channels that might
otherwise draw commercial investors but also by keeping unsustainable
programs alive.