Category: Data Source
Robin Hanson receives ein Wunsch
German scientists are planning the country’s biggest biomedical study. The National Cohort will be an intensive investigation of the health, lifestyle and genetics of 200,000 people, at an estimated cost of €210m over 10 years.
…They intend to use the National Cohort “to investigate how chronic diseases are conditioned by lifestyle and environmental issues, as well as by genetic predisposition”.
“Technology has now advanced to the point at which we can use a population study to find and evaluate biomarkers and other tools for early detection of disease,” said Prof Kaaks.
These people will receive extensive medical examinations at the beginning and along the way. Here is one example of what will be done:
The German scientists are keen, for example, to discover how exercise protects against disease. “Better quantitative estimates are required of how much protection there is to be had and how much physical activity is required to obtain it,” said Prof Kaaks. That means studying a very large number of participants whose activity can be assessed regularly over many years or even decades.
Germany has less variation in health care access than does the U.S., but still this is another variable which could be studied, given this data.
Polls of German economists
A very interesting poll from the German FT is here (in German). In addition to answering other questions, German economists speak to who are the important economists for the 21st century. I'll add together the first two categories ("very important" and "somewhat important") for a total percentage measure for reported importance. (Correction: there were 1158 respondents.) The standings look like this:
1. Keynes: 92.4 percent
2. Paul Samuelson: 87.8 percent
3. Joseph Stiglitz: 86.0 percent
4. Milton Friedman: 84.6 percent
5. George Akerlof: 83.9 percent
6. Robert Solow: 82.5 percent
7. Joseph Schumpeter: 82.2 percent
8. Paul Krugman: 81.8 percent
9. Friedrich von Hayek: 74.6 percent
10. Amartya Sen: 71.4 percent
11. Gary Becker: 70.1 percent
12. Daniel Kahneman: 58.1 percent
13. Walter Eucken: 53.0 percent
14. Robert Shiller: 53.0 percent
15. Hyman Minsky: 34.2 percent
16. Ludwig Erhard: 30.3 percent
Based on my observation, I believe the supporters of Hayek, Eucken (a classical liberal), and Erhard are relatively old and that this strand of thought is losing ground in German academia.
The party membership of these same economists is striking for its relative rejection of the two largest parties:
SPD (the second major party and somewhat to the left of CDU/CSU)
FDP (the market-oriented party)
No preference
I take this to reflect that German economists are more intellectual, and more philosophical, than their American peers and thus more likely to adhere to a consistent philosophy of some kind or another. They are less likely to affiliate with mainstream political thought.
You will find more questions and answers here. By a 2.5 to 1 margin (roughly), German economists think that the U.S. taxation system should be more progressive. By almost 2 to 1 they think economics has become too formal. There are very mixed answers on whether Germany needs to overhaul its export-oriented growth model, but few German economists favor a total overhaul.
Here are their answers on what makes for a good economist, again all in German. These I did not find so startling.
For the pointers to this treasure trove of data, I thank Mathias Burger.
Why do IQs vary across nations?
People who live in countries where disease is rife may have lower IQs because they have to divert energy away from brain development to fight infections, scientists in the US claim.
The controversial idea might help explain why national IQ scores differ around the world, and are lower in some warmer countries where debilitating parasites such as malaria are widespread, they say.
Researchers behind the theory claim the impact of disease on IQ scores has been under-appreciated, and believe it ranks alongside education and wealth as a major factor that influences cognitive ability.
The full story is here. The original research paper is here. I'm not sure the authors have a very good test against alternative hypotheses, but still a correlation remains after making some appropriate adjustments.
How much do Somali pirates earn?
I am unsure of the generality of the sources here, but the author — Jay Bahadur — is writing a book on the topic and at the very least his investigation sounds serious:
The figures debunk the myth that piracy turns the average Somali teenager into a millionaire overnight. Those at the bottom of the pyramid barely made what is considered a living wage in the western world. Each holder would have spent roughly two-thirds of his time, or 1,150 hours, on board the Victoria during its 72 days at Eyl, earning an hourly wage of $10.43. The head chef and sous-chef would have earned $11.57 and $5.21 an hour, respectively.
Even the higher payout earned by the attackers seems much less appealing when one considers the risks involved: the moment he stepped into a pirate skiff, an attacker accepted a 1-2 per cent chance of being killed, a 0.5-1 per cent chance of being wounded and a 5-6 per cent chance of being captured and jailed abroad. By comparison, the deadliest civilian occupation in the US, that of the king-crab fisherman, has an on-the-job fatality rate of about 400 per 100,000, or 0.4 per cent.
As in any pyramid scheme, the clear winner was the man on the top. Computer [a man's name] was responsible for supplying start-up capital worth roughly $40,000, which went towards the attack boat, outboard motors, weapons, food and fuel. For this investment he received half of the total ransom, or $900,000. After subtracting the operating expenses of $230,000 that the group incurred during the Victoria’s captivity in Eyl, Computer’s return on investment would have been an enviable 1,600 per cent.
There is a very good chart on the right-hand side bar of the article.
Haiti fact of the day
Haiti's population is expected to jump from the current 9.6 million to 13.4 million in 2050, marking a 40 percent increase, according to data released Monday.
The new demographic figures take into account the many deaths stemming from the Jan. 12 earthquake, which claimed between 230,000 and 300,000 lives and rendered 1.5 million homeless.
Here is more.
China fact of the day
China now exports every six hours as much as it did in the whole of 1978
That is from The Browser, and bluegod, on Twitter.
Greece fact of the day
I had never thought about this before, but once you ponder all of those islands, relatively close to Africa and the Middle East, it makes sense:
The vast majority of all illegal immigrants detected attempting to enter the 25-nation EU do so from Greece. The bloc's southernmost member accounted for 75 per cent of all attempted illegal border crossings in 2009 and 88 per cent in the first part of 2010…
Spanish sentences to ponder
El riesgo del sector público es muy superior (marca máximos) al riesgo del sector privado.
Check out the CDS spread, the market is now more worried about a Spanish government default than a default from either Banco Santander or a major telecom company.
And yet we are told there are no market signals that European governments are spending too much. We are also told that the Spanish government can do OK with its halfhearted austerity plan or maybe they should even be spending more. Those discussions usually stop at the mention of a single interest rate or perhaps an unemployment figure.
For the pointer I thank Andres A.
Trouble in the Spanish CDS market
"Los inversores piden mayor prima por asegurar el riesgo de España a un año que a tres años."
In other words, Spain is riskier in the next year than it is three years from now, just like Greece and Portugal. That means the market thinks things will be coming to a head. Some very good pictures of the prices, and further commentary (in Spanish), is here. The article also states:
En cualquier caso, este indicador significa que el mercado, ahora sÃ, nos sitúa en el mismo “subgrupo” que Grecia y Portugal.
I don't need to translate that one for you.
For the pointer I thank Abel.
Lean hogs vs. sugar
The link is here and for the pointer I thank John De Palma.
Richard Florida’s index of the least bohemian cities
He measures Los Angeles as the most bohemian city in North America and the five least bohemian are the following:
1. Riverside
2. Hartford
3. New Orleans
4. Memphis
5. Birmingham
The lists continue at the link, along with a very interesting discussion. I'll accede to some version of this more-scientific-than-my-intuition list, while noting that my picks were different in part because I restricted my attention to much larger population centers. Florida also remarks that Stockholm measures as quite bohemian, while I wish to note I'm familiar with the Goth culture of Santiago, Chile but not so impressed by it as true bohemianism.
Addendum: Here's the start of Florida's definition: "The index charts the concentration of working artists, musicians, writers, designers, and entertainers across metropolitan areas." I had something in mind more about the "feeling of the place," so I see L.A.'s "Downtown" as quite bohemian in spots but the city as less bohemian overall than Florida's index will indicate.
Sentences to ponder
This table shows that 47% of consumption growth since December comes from spending on import-intensive goods.
That's Michael Mandel and there is much more here.
What do the freedom indices measure?
Here is a must-read post from StatsGuy, via James Kwak. I don't agree with everything he says (e.g., Singapore, Wagner's Law) but here is his conclusion:
The Heritage Freedom Index is really a composite of measures that get at two different things: Good Government, and Less Government. Overall, the Good Government factors tend to dominate, and drive a lot of the correlation with good economic and quality of life outcomes. When one splits out the factors, the case for Less/Weaker Government weakens substantially, and the case for Clean/Non-Corrupt/Efficient government strengthens considerably.
Addendum: Here is a related discussion, especially in the comments.
The political slants of the news diets of media figures
Jesse Shapiro and Matt Gentzow start off their short note as follows:
We use data from comScore,Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI), and The AtlanticWire “Media Diet” to study the news diets of media figures such as David Brooks and Tyler Cowen.
This is what they find:
Tyler Cowen’s news diet is relatively liberal: 45.7 percent of users of the average news outlet he visits are conservative.
This means that Cowen’s news diet is more conservative than 11 percent of all Internet users, and 8 percent of all media figures interviewed by the Atlantic Wire.
David Brooks’ news diet is relatively conservative: 60.4 percent of users of the average news outlet he visits are conservative. This means that Brooks’ news diet is more conservative than 74 percent of all Internet users and 72 percent of all media figures interviewed by the Atlantic Wire.
pp.3-4 in the paper offer the measurements for other media figures, including Jeff Goldberg, Felix Salmon, Marc Ambinder, and David Frum.
What do you think? Do the more conservative commentators have a more conservative media diet? Which factors determine the political slant of the media diet of a public intellectual? Does it matter, for instance, where you were born? I'll predict that conservatives who grew up in the Northeast are more likely to spend a lot of time with The New York Times than conservatives from the South.
Here is a previous MR post on this line of research by the authors.
Kentucky fact of the day
The last Public Policy Polling survey in Kentucky found that more Republicans think Rand Paul (R) is too liberal (17%) than think he is too conservative (12%).
That is from Jerry Brito.