Category: Data Source

Check out Paul Krugman mentions in the blogosphere. 

Addendum: His column today on the Medicare drug bill is excellent, and I otherwise would have linked to it.  Here is one partial version.

Second addendum: Gary Karr, Medicare’s chief spokesman, sent me the following in an email:

1. Robert Keohane

2. Kenneth Waltz

3. Alexander Wendt

4. Samuel Huntington

5. John Mearsheimer

6. Joseph Nye

7. Robert Jervis

8. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

9. Bruce Russett

10. Robert Gilpin

When I see a list like this, I realize just how much of an economist I am.

Addendum: This may be further information, and perhaps the poll was restricted to the field of IR.

A small African state like Chad has an economy smaller than that of a Washington suburb like Bethesda and a banking sector smaller than the Federal Credit union set up for World Bank staff.

That is from Tim Harford’s The Undercover Economist.

This year alone, Shanghai will complete towers with more space for
living and working than there is in all the office buildings in New York City.

Here is the full story.

Remember that poll from a month or so ago?  Here are the winners, ugh to number one.  Here is the full list and vote tally; having a non-European, hard to spell or pronounce last name virtually guarantees you sink to the bottom.  Milton Friedman was the number one write-in candidate.  France had one name in the top forty.  Thanks to www.politicaltheory.info for the pointer. 

Estimated wealth of African wealth held in foreign accounts, expressed as a percentage of African GDP: 172

That is from Harper’s Index, October 2005 issue, p.11, the figure is based on UN sources.

A few days ago I cited The New York Times on the honeybee. Many of you (thank you, all) have written in to mention the deer, a source of deadly car crashes. While this choice depends on your theory of causality, the word "dangerous" does seem to apply, here is one data source.

Cast your five votes here, plus you can see how old each candidate is and how many of these names you have read or heard of.  Several economists, such as Krugman, Becker, Sen, Summers, and Bhagwati, are included in the polling; Hernando de Soto and Richard Posner make the list as well.  For other nominees, how about Derek Parfit and Milton Friedman?  Philip Roth?  The politically incorrect Michel Houllebecq?  Bruno Latour?  Marvin Minsky or Hans Moravec?  I am glad to see Pramoedya Toer on the list.  How about the Google people?  An early blogger?

What is the most dangerous animal in the United States, not counting people?  View here.  Read here.  If that (NYT) link won’t work for you, here is another source.

The "winner" is Democratic Republic of the Congo, the loser New Zealand, here is a longer list.  Here is an excellent chart; for getting licenses the U.S. is only number seventeen, for getting credit the UK is number one.  Do take a look.  Here is the related document.  In 2004 Serbia and Montenegro reformed the most for job creation incentives.  Africa had the lowest propensity for reforms in 2004.  Thanks to Tim Harford for the pointer, this work should make a big splash.

According to the latest poverty rate estimates – released by the Census Bureau on Aug. 30 – the total percentage of Americans living in poverty was higher in 2004 (12.7 percent) than in 1974 (11.2 percent). According to that same report, poverty rates for American families and children were likewise higher last year than three decades earlier.

But can this be true?

Per capita income adjusted for inflation is over 60 percent higher today than in 1974. The unemployment rate is lower, and the percentage of adults with paying jobs is distinctly higher. Thirty years ago, the proportion of adults without a high school diploma was more than twice as high as today (39 percent versus 16 percent). And antipoverty spending is vastly higher today than in 1974, even after inflation adjustments…

The soundings from the poverty rate are further belied by information on actual living standards for low-income Americans. In 1972-73, for example, just 42 percent of the bottom fifth of American households owned a car; in 2003, almost three-quarters of "poverty households" had one. By 2001, only 6 percent of "poverty households" lived in "crowded" homes (more than one person per room) – down from 26 percent in 1970. By 2003, the fraction of poverty households with central air-conditioning (45 percent) was much higher than the 1980 level for the non-poor (29 percent).

Besides these living trends, there are what we might call the "dying trends": that is to say, America’s health and mortality patterns. All strata of America – including the disadvantaged – are markedly healthier today than three decades ago. Though the officially calculated poverty rate for children was higher in 2004 than 1974 (17.8 percent versus 15.4 percent), the infant mortality rate – that most telling measure of wellbeing – fell by almost three-fifths over those same years, to 6.7 per 1,000 births from 16.7 per 1,000.

Here is the link.  There are two bottom lines.  First, we have made more progress against poverty than the numbers indicate.  Second, we should look first to consumption data, not income data.

Inspired by my earlier post, Chris Robinson has written some clever code to query UHaul prices which he then analyzes.  Also, like a true statistical gentleman, he makes the data available to all.

Steve Levitt chimes in on whether this is freaky enough – no, it’s encouraging. but not quite there yet.

Me?  I am still hoping that someone will follow up on my suggestion that these prices explain why women drink free nights are a good idea.

Total tsunami foreign aid from the U.S.: $908 million

U.S. tariff revenue from Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, and Indonesia: $1.87 billion

That is from Foreign Policy, September/October issue.

Eric Rasmusen recommends factory tours.  Along related lines, four of my favorite global sites are Gary, Indiana, the Ruhrgebiet near Duisburg, Germany, the harbor in Rotterdam (yes you can take a tour), and of course the view from the Pulaski Skyway.  I call it "industrial beauty."  And to think they asked me on New Zealand television whether New Jersey has more than one culture…