Category: Law
*The Bretton Woods Transcripts*
That is the new eBook edited by Kurt Schuler and Andrew Rosenberg. I cannot open the file they sent along to me, but Amazon summarizes:
The Bretton Woods Transcripts is the confidential, verbatim record of meetings of the historic conference that established the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The Bretton Woods conference, named after the New Hampshire town where the conference was held in July 1944, began a new era in international economic cooperation that continues today. Delegates from 44 countries attended the conference. The best known then and now was John Maynard Keynes, the most influential economist of the 20th century.
A companion Web site for the book contains extensive background material, including photos of the original transcripts and previously unreleased conference documents: http://www.centerforfinancialstability.org/brettonwoods.php
The culture that is Denmark
Some of them he slept with more than once, but most were one-timers. In all, he earned just over 24,000 kroner, or $4,150.
Henrik only paid 6,300 kroner ($1,090) in taxes, or 24.2 percent, because he was able to deduct 11,000 kroner ($1,900) for expenses, including his Macbook. He had sex with a client in Croatia when he was there on vacation, and when he returned, he called the tax authorities to ask if he could deduct the cost of the holiday. Flights yes, came the answer, hotel no.
I asked Henrik why his spreadsheet listed the distance he cycled to each client.
“Bike rides,” he says, “are reimbursed half a kroner per kilometer.”
Here is more.
Medicare cost control in action
Tens of thousands of people with chronic conditions and disabilities may find it easier to qualify for Medicare coverage of potentially costly home health care, skilled nursing home stays and outpatient therapy under policy changes planned by the Obama administration.
In a proposed settlement of a nationwide class-action lawsuit, the administration has agreed to scrap a decades-old practice that required many beneficiaries to show a likelihood of medical or functional improvement before Medicare would pay for skilled nursing and therapy services.
…Neither she nor Medicare officials could say how much the settlement might cost the government, but the price of expanding such coverage could be substantial.
The story is here. Without knowing the cost, it is difficult to say whether this coverage expansion is a good idea. But that is exactly my point. I see a good deal of cognitive dissonance when I read discussions of plans for Medicare cost control.
Italian scientists sent to prison for false predictions
Six Italian scientists and an ex-government official have been sentenced to six years in prison over the 2009 deadly earthquake in L’Aquila.
A regional court found them guilty of multiple manslaughter.
Prosecutors had said the defendants gave a falsely reassuring statement before the quake after studying tremors that had shaken the city.
The defence had argued that there was no way to predict major earthquakes even in a seismically active area.
The 6.3 magnitude quake devastated the city and killed 309 people.
Here is the link, here is some back story.
In case there was any remaining doubt
The Supreme Court of Honduras ruled today that the Honduras legislation establishing charter or model cities was unconstitutional. A ruling two weeks ago from the constitutional branch of the court established by a 4-1 vote that the law was unconstitutional. Because that decision was not unanimous, the entire Supreme Court had to consider and vote on the issue.
The full court voted 13-2 that decreto 283-2010 which reformed two constitutional articles to enable the model cities legislation violated the constitution.
There is a bit more here, including some information on one of the companies involved.
Greece fact of the day
Was this driven by the median voter, or by special interest groups?:
The government just passed a law allowing supermarkets to sell expired food at discounted prices.
The story is here.
In which the Minnesotans call off the paddy wagon and leave us free
Pogemiller, according to the e-mail, said a 20-year-old statute requiring institutional registration clearly did not envision free online, not-for-credit offerings.
“When the legislature convenes in January, my intent is to work with the Governor and Legislature to appropriately update the statute to meet modern-day circumstances,” said Pogemiller. “Until that time, I see no reason for our office to require registration of free, not-for-credit offerings.”
Of course pursuing such an issue was not a political winner in the first place.
The link is here, and for the pointer I thank M.
Marginal Revolution University has been Banned in Minnesota!
Minnesota has banned MRUniversity and other online education services from providing content to Minnesota residents. This seems like a joke but it is not from The Onion. Coursera, one of the larger players in this field, has rewritten its terms of service to prohibit Minnesota residents from taking its courses:
Coursera has been informed by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education that under Minnesota Statutes (136A.61 to 136A.71), a university cannot offer online courses to Minnesota residents unless the university has received authorization from the State of Minnesota to do so. If you are a resident of Minnesota, you agree that either (1) you will not take courses on Coursera, or (2) for each class that you take, the majority of work you do for the class will be done from outside the State of Minnesota.
Tyler and I wish to be perfectly clear: unlike Coursera, we will not shut down MRU to the residents of Minnesota. We are prepared to defend our rights under the First Amendment to teach the good people of Minnesota all about the Solow Model, water policy in Africa, and the economics of garlic–even if we have to do so from a Minnesota jail!
Subsidies for virtual water
From Robert Glennon:
In 2012, the drought-stricken Western United States will ship more than 50 billion gallons of water to China. This water will leave the country embedded in alfalfa–most of it grown in California–and is destined to feed Chinese cows. The strange situation illustrates what is wrong about how we think, or rather don’t think, about water policy in the U.S.
Here is more, and for the pointer I thank the estimable Chug.
Michael Pollan on Proposition 37
I am a big fan of the food writings of Michael Pollan, but his recent opinion piece on GMO labeling could be stronger.
His argument for voting “yes” on mandatory labeling is mostly mood affiliation, namely that this is part of some broader battle against “Big Food.” He doesn’t for instance consider how the Proposition may damage many smaller farmers, or that GMOs seem to lower carbon emissions and otherwise help the environment. Here is yet another discussion of benefits, or see this survey post.
His final and in fact main argument contains a simple error in economics, all too common among food writers:
…to date, genetically modified foods don’t offer the eater any benefits whatsoever…
He forgot to mention that they increase supply and lower price. Quick question: how did the GMO products otherwise obtain market share?
For the pointer I thank Michael.
Eric Maskin on Patents
From a letter to the NYTimes:
… in the software industry, progress is highly sequential: progress is typically made through a large number of small steps, each building on the previous ones. If one of those steps is patentable, then the patent holder can effectively block (or at least slow down) subsequent progress by setting high license fees.
Moreover, like any other monopolist, it has the incentive to set such fees.
Thus, in an industry with highly sequential innovation, it may be better for society to scrap patents altogether than try to tighten them.
ERIC S. MASKIN
Cambridge, Mass., Oct. 8, 2012The writer, a professor of economics at Harvard, is a 2007 Nobel laureate in economics.
An MR reader on Proposition 37 (GMO labeling)
He wrote to me:
There’s two things about the labeling debate that really bother me:
First, we have to concede that not everything can be labeled. If so, the burdens would almost instantly put huge swaths of businesses out of business. My dad, a dentist, does not have to label every instrument to describe where the metal came from, which machines made it, etc. So the question is: where do we draw the line on what should be labeled? My view is, if there is scientific evidence suggesting a plausible connection to harm, then requiring labeling makes sense. But the view of the food activists is that they should just know everything, regardless of evidence, irrespective of cost. So everyone should pay high costs because of their fears, which have no basis in evidence or fact.
On related matters, here is Mark Bittman on his ideal food labels, serving up a rather ambitious proposal.
On one specific point, he wants to levy a black mark against companies which treat their workers poorly. On the contrary, that is a sign the product likely comes from a poor country and probably you are doing the world more good in buying it and, in the longer run, bidding up wages and working conditions in that country. It helps other people more to buy from China than Portland, even though workers fare much better in the latter locale. This difference in perspective is a simple illustration of how “ideal” food labeling can rather rapidly go wrong, especially when it is tangled up with the desire to make expressive statements about what one wishes to affiliate with or not.
A further question: at which margin do consumers stop paying attention? When was the last time you read your new iTunes “I agree” contract before clicking? Attention is scarce, so we need to pick and choose priorities.
What about the cost of producing such complicated labels and the enforcement of their veracity? Food supply chains these days are often quite complicated. Do you need to monitor how the fish sauce or oyster sauce in your composite food product was produced? Bittman writes:
These are not simple calculations, but neither can one honestly say that they’re impossible to perform.
That is setting a rather low bar, and vaguely at that. Most bad economic policies would meet that standard. I would rephrase it: first figure out how many small and poor and foreign farmers this labeling proposal would put under — and then get back to us with a proposal.
Here is my earlier survey post on Bittman and evidence relating to GMOs. And here Jonathan Adler offers an excellent analysis, including freedom of speech issues.
Good sentences
…it’s simply not the case that contracting out lets you do away with the unelected panel of experts that Obama needs to make his price controls work. The premium support model of Medicare has at its heart a panel of experts determining the value of each person’s voucher since absent demographic and health status adjustment the whole system will be ruined by adverse selection.
Here are some related points from Ezra Klein, including a discussion of Paul Ryan.
Imprisonment and infant mortality
Here is a new study by Christopher Wildeman (pdf):
This article estimates the effects of imprisonment on infant mortality using data from the United States, 1990-2003. Results using state-level data show consistent effects of imprisonment rates on infant mortality rates and absolute black-white inequality in infant mortality rates. Estimates suggest that had the American imprisonment rate remained at the 1973 level—the year generally considered the beginning of the prison boom—the 2003 infant mortality rate would have been 7.8% lower, absolute black-white inequality in the infant mortality rate 14.8% lower. Results using micro-level data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) show that recent parental incarceration elevates early infant mortality risk, that effects are concentrated in the postneonatal period, and that partner violence moderates these relationships. Importantly, results suggest that recent parental incarceration elevates the risk of early infant death by 29.6% for the average infant in the sample. Taken together, results show that imprisonment may have consequences for population health and inequality in population health and should be considered when assessing variation in health across nations, states, neighborhoods, and individuals.
How much would it matter if we deregulated health insurance across state lines?
Allowing insurance sales across state lines comes up perennially as a way to drive down the cost of health care.
Conservatives argue that allowing a plan from a state with relatively few benefit mandates – say, Wyoming – to sell its package in a mandate-heavy state (like New York) would give consumers access to options that are more affordable than what they get now.
Liberals tend to argue this is a bad idea, contending that it would create a “race to the bottom,” where insurers compete to offer the skimpiest benefit packages.
A new paper from Georgetown University researchers suggests a third possible outcome: Absolutely nothing at all will happen. They looked at the three states – Maine, Georgia and Wyoming – that have passed laws allowing insurers from other states to participate in their markets. All have done so within the past two years.
So far, none of the three have seen out-of-state carriers come into their market or express interest in doing so. It seems to have nothing to do with state benefit mandates, and everything to do with the big challenge of setting up a network of providers that new subscribers could see.
“The number one barrier is really building that provider network that’s attractive enough to get patients to sign up,” said lead study author Sabrina Corlette. “To do that, you have to offer providers attractive reimbursement rates, which makes it difficult to get them in network.”
Corlette and her colleagues talked to insurers and regulators in all three states. And they heard this barrier come up again and again: Entering a new state is really difficult, whether there are benefit mandates or not. “We kept hearing about the cost of building a provider network that’s strong enough to market,” she said.