Sunday assorted links
1. “Belgium was the worst-hit country per capita in Europe. They did systematic testing for #SARSCoV2 in long-term care facilities, just reported…o symptoms were reported in 6,244 *(74.8%)* of 8,343 people who tested positive” Link here.
2. Scott Sumner on Joseph Conrad.
3. “On a per-capita basis, of the European majors only Germany has done better than the US in death rate” Link here.
4. The WHO was (and is) wrong about the virus being airborne (NYT). A remarkable story about an unfathomable error of great import.
5. Georgia Tech professors revolt over reopening.
On some limitations of personality psychology
…Big Five Conscientiousness was not found to correlate with mask wearing in a sample of thousands in Spain during the coronavirus epidemic (Barceló & Sheen, 2020). This was not treated by the authors as any kind of falsification of the Big Five, or even evidence against it. The abstract noun “conscientiousness” has a rich meaning, only part of which is captured by the Big Five, and only a tinier part of which is captured by the two-question methodology used here (“does a thorough job” and “tends to be lazy”). But Conscientiousness is often correlated to health behaviors, and is often said to predict them with various strengths, even though the questions in the survey focus on job performance and tidiness.
Here is the full essay “by a literal banana,” interesting throughout.
“The purchasing power of money is the same everywhere”
Didn’t Mises insist on that proposition in his Theory of Money and Credit? The claim always bugged me, as it is true only tautologically. Here is one counterexample:
In a remote area of Papua’s Pegunungan Bintang regency, purchasing staple commodities will put a far bigger dent in your wallet than in most other areas of Indonesia.
For a sack of rice, typically weighing 10 kilograms, people in the traditional gold mining area of Korowai have to spend at least Rp 2 million (US$138.5), similar to the cost of a low-end smartphone.
For comparison, in Jakarta, 1 kilogram of rice costs Rp 10,000 to Rp 11,000, meaning 10 kg of rice costs people in the capital around Rp 110,000.
The massive price discrepancies are not limited to rice. A box of instant noodles costs Rp 1 million in Korowai. Sometimes, people even pay with two grams of gold.
“A pack of instant noodles costs Rp 25,000,” said Hengki Yaluwo, an administrator of a cooperative in Korowai’s Mining Area 33 on Wednesday.
“Ten kilograms of rice costs four grams of gold. If you pay with cash, you need Rp 2 million,” he said.
One can of fish typically costs Rp 150,000, while a cell phone could cost 10 to 25 grams of gold, Hengki said.
As for arbitrage:
Reaching Korowai is difficult. People must take a helicopter from Bovel Digoel regency, and then continue by longboat, traveling along the Boven Digoel river for one day. After this, they must travel by foot for two days before finally arriving at the Korowai mining area.
Here is the full story, via Shaffin Shariff. Here are photos of the Korowai people, ignore the text. Here is a more sober and probably more accurate Wikipedia article.
The NBA’s reopening is a warning sign
There’s only one problem: An increasing number of players do not seem very interested in being guinea pigs in this experiment. At first the secessions were a trickle. Now they are picking up steam.
Davis Bertrans, arguably the second-best active player on my home team the Washington Wizards, will not play because he doesn’t want to risk injury and endanger his prospects as a free agent next season. [TC: Bradley Beal has since announced his indecision.] That’s an entirely reasonable excuse, and more and more players are finding them…
These players will still be paid, but they are lowering their future market value by expressing less than a full commitment to the team. And it is hard to imagine that many other workplace environments can be made much safer than the planned NBA bubble.
One has to wonder how many other players are planning to drop out, or perhaps hoping that the decision will be made for them: Maybe they will get an injury during training camp, say, or worsening conditions in Florida will require cancellation of the season, or it will become more socially acceptable not to play. In the meantime, the dominant strategy may simply be to wait and root against the resumption of play.
Here is the rest of my Bloomberg column on this topic. The broader point of course is this: if players being paid millions, and put into a highly regulated bubble, and tested regularly, feel this way, what about the broader work force?
Saturday assorted links
The merit of Mount Rushmore
I went there once, I think in 1988. To me it was a nightmare, aesthetically and otherwise. The art of the monument was “not even as good as fascism.” (Various Soviet-era memorials are far superior as well.) I am not into the whole cancelling thing, but I didn’t feel I needed to pay additional homage to a bunch of well-known presidents. The surrounding food scene appeared quite mediocre, although probably that has improved. Overall it was crowded, tacky, and unpleasant, with absolutely nothing of value to do.
The main value of the scene was to liberate space and ease congestion in other parts of the universe, so I certainly hope they never abolish it.
Megan McArdle on Patrick Collison on China
On first read, that sentiment might seem banal. Of course we should clearly oppose China’s intensifying political repression. But is easier to list American business leaders who have cravenly excused the inexcusable than to name those such as Collison, who have been brave enough to state the obvious. When it comes to China’s human rights abuses, the position of the American business community is prone…
“It must be possible,” Collison tells me, “to acknowledge the basic facts — for example, that concentration camps and forced sterilization programs are reprehensible evils. If it becomes de facto unacceptable to do so, as part of some kind of self-perpetuating silence, it really seems to me that that’s a positive feedback loop that we should hurry to break.”
There is much more at the link, definitely recommended.
What should I ask Nicholas Bloom?
I will be doing a Conversation with him, so what should I ask? Here is part of his official bio:
Nicholas (Nick) Bloom is the William Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow of SIEPR, and the Co-Director of the Productivity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research focuses on management practices and uncertainty. He previously worked at the UK Treasury and McKinsey & Company.
Is there anyone whose name is on more important/interesting papers over the last ten years? Here is a sampling.
So what should I ask him?
Deconvexifying the car, car feature markets in everything
…BMW is planning to move some features of its new cars to a subscription model, something it announced on Wednesday during a briefing for the press on the company’s digital plans.
…now the Bavarian carmaker has plans to apply that model to features like heated seats. BMW says that owners can “benefit in advance from the opportunity to try out the products for a trial period of one month, after which they can book the respective service for one or three years.” The company also says that it could allow the second owner of a BMW to activate features that the original purchaser declined.
In fact, BMW has already started implementing this idea in some markets, allowing software unlocking of features like adaptive cruise control or high-beam assist (in the United States, those options are usually standard equipment). Other features are more whimsical, like having a Hans Zimmer-designed sound package for your electric BMW or adaptive suspension for your M-car. Indeed, the company says that its forthcoming iNext will “expand the opportunities for personalization.” I’m sure y’all can’t wait.
Here is the full story, via the excellent Samir Varma. In the standard theory of bundling, bundling enables more price discrimination, as for instance with the cable TV bundle. But if most consumers really don’t value the add-ons at all, which perhaps is the case here, a’la carte may maximize revenue after all.
Friday assorted links
1. Profile of Nathan Tankus. And Clockwork Orange review.
2. The growing influence of Sci-hub.
3. Somerville, Mass. recognizes polyamory (NYT).
4. France bans Dutch bike TV ad for creating ‘climate of fear’ about cars. “The French advertising code prohibits the exploitation of fear and suffering in commercials.”
5. “…a novel song sung by white-throated sparrows is spreading across Canada at an unprecedented rate. What’s more, the new song appears to be replacing the pre-existing melody, which dates as far back as the 1960s.” Link here.
Tales from Trinidad barter markets in everything
One of my favorite countries, this is from the newspaper:
DESPERATE to get his taxi badge, a man bought a $500 used typewriter and donated it to the Licensing Office…
The seller, who asked not to be named, wrote: “So funny story. I had a typewriter for sale on Facebook marketplace for some time. I get this call from a young man. We chat for a bit. He says he’s down at licensing office. He’s coming right now.
“When he arrives he gives me the story. Since December he’s been trying to get his taxi badge. He bought a maxi taxi and can’t use it because he’s waiting for his badge. Then when he passed pandemic lockdown happened. Three months later, Licensing Office opens with an appointment system, appointment to pay, then appointment to collect. The day arrives to collect. He’s told typewriter is not working over a week.”
The post goes on to say that officials at Licensing agreed that if they got a typewriter they would be able to provide the taxi badge.
The seller continues: “He finds me on Facebook marketplace. When he arrives he says ‘You ever heard of a private person buying a typewriter for the State?’ Money paid. He calls later to say everyone is getting their license today. He actually called twice while at licensing office to get further instruction on operating the typewriter. Well done, young man. Well done!”
Via K.
Combining life insurance and health insurance
Why not internalize the relevant externalities by bringing the two together?:
We estimate the benefit of life-extending medical treatments to life insurance companies. Our main insight is that life insurance companies have a direct benefit from such treatments because they lower the insurer’s liabilities by pushing the death benefit further into the future and raising future premium income. We apply this insight to immunotherapy, treatments associated with durable gains in survival rates for a growing number of cancer patients. We estimate that the life insurance sector’s aggregate benefit from FDA-approved immunotherapies is $9.8 billion a year. Such life-extending treatments are often prohibitively expensive for patients and governments alike. Exploiting this value creation, we explore various ways life insurers could improve stress-free access to treatment. We discuss potential barriers to integration and the long-run implications for the industrial organization of life and health insurance markets, as well as the broader implications for medical innovation and long-term care insurance markets.
That is from a recent article by Ralph S J Koijen and Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh in the May 2020 QJE. Here are ungated versions of the same paper. And here is Robin’s related idea from 1994.
New evidence that amino acid mutations matter for contagiousness
It seems the virus mutated in Europe and became significantly more contagious (though not more dangerous per unit dose):
The Spike D614G amino acid change is caused by an A-to-G nucleotide mutation at position 23,403 in the Wuhan reference strain; it was the only site identified in our first Spike variation analysis in early March that met our threshold criterion. At that time, the G614 form was rare globally, but gaining prominence in Europe, and GISAID was also tracking the clade carrying the D614G substitution, designating it the “G clade”. The D614G change is almost always accompanied by three other mutations: a C-to-T mutation in the 5’ UTR (position 241 relative to the Wuhan reference sequence), a silent C-to-T mutation at position 3,037; and a C-to-T mutation at position 14,408 that results in an amino acid change in RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp P323L). The haplotype comprising these 4 genetically linked mutations is now the globally dominant form. Prior to March 1, it was found in 10% of 997 global sequences; between March 1- March 31, it represented 67% of 14,951 sequences; and between April 1- May 18 (the last data point available in our May 29th sample) it represented 78% of 12,194 sequences. The transition from D614 to G614 was occurred asynchronously in different regions throughout the world, beginning in Europe, followed by North America and Oceania, then Asia (Figs. 1-3, S2-S3).
That is from a new paper in Cell by B. Korber et.al., via Eric Topol. You will note there is another recent paper suggesting the east and west coasts of the United States have faced different mutations and thus different levels of contagiousness, but that seems less well established.
The authors do not mention Taiwan, but if I understand their chronology correctly, it would seem that Taiwan has not significant been hit by the most contagious version of the virus.
In any case, I will repeat my general point: moralizing about the virus is premature. And of course the main result presented in this new paper is subject to revision, further scrutiny, and possible reversal.
Addendum: Here is NYT coverage.
Thursday assorted links
1. A massive star has disappeared without a trace.
2. The Roy and Paul Romer WSJ “keep our schools open and test” ad. Yet the CDC recommends against entry testing for higher education, see these Bergstrom tweets. Deeply irresponsible.
3. The culture that was Finland — until now!
4. Alabama students are throwing Covid parties.
5. British plan to become a science superpower.
6. What are the proper standards for informed consent in photographing protests?
7. Baz Luhrmann to adapt Master and Margarita for the large screen.
Cornell understands the equilibrium
They are reopening campus for the coming semester and here is one reason why:
…the finding from Cornell researchers that holding the semester online potentially could result in more infections and more hospitalizations among students and staff members than holding the semester in person would.
A study by Cornell researchers concluded that with nominal parameters, an in-person semester would result in 3.6 percent of the campus population (1,254 people) becoming infected, and 0.047 percent (16 people) requiring hospitalization. An online semester, they concluded, would result in about 7,200 infections and more than 60 hospitalizations.
Do note it is critical to the argument that the returning students actually are tested on a regular basis, which of course is very hard to enforce on-line.