Category: Uncategorized
Sunday assorted links
1. Where have all the briskets gone? A good lesson in supply chain economics. And China to slap big tariffs on Australian barley exports.
2. Scarlett Strong on the updated source code.
3. Falling as a feature of Covid-19.
4. Dithering: a new podcast by Ben Thompson and John Gruber.
5. WHO conditionally backs the notion of Human Challenge Trials for vaccines.
6. Hockey analytics guy contributes to Covid-19 modeling.
7. Toward a theory of how and why UFOs would reveal themselves.
8. How much would you pay for this distanced (Dutch) meal?
9. “Citations for traveling faster than 100 mph have been numerous in recent days.”
10. Millie Small, RIP (music video).
11. To be clear, I am not against this kind of article (NYT). “Sweatpants and Caviar,” but in the paper edition it is called “A Chance to Think About Composing that Opera.” Still, we can learn a bit from doing a small amount of modeling of how it came about.
12. A sad take, no matter which side you trust, our regulatory state is failing us.
13. “Ethics of controlled human infection to study COVID-19.” That is what you might call “an establishment piece.” On one hand, it is nice to see them not reject the idea, though they cannot agree on monetary compensation for exposure. I wonder how they feel about fishing boats?
HHS turned down a big opportunity to make a lot of masks early
Another HHS official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: “There is a process for putting out contracts. It wasn’t as fast as anyone wanted it to be.”
The masks still are not being made, and this would be in Texas. I’ll say it yet again: our regulatory state is failing us in this matter. Here is a bit more:
From his end, Bowen [the mask maker] said his proposal seemed to be going nowhere. “No one at HHS ever did get back to me in a substantive way,” Bowen said.
The senior U.S. official said Bowen’s idea was considered, but funding could not easily be obtained without diverting it from other projects.
While we are on the topic of diverting funding, surely we would all agree that the NSF funding for the social sciences all should — for at least two years — be diverted to biomedical research? I wonder how many economists are willing to tweet that policy recommendation.
RIP, Little Richard
Hat tip: Stephen Landry.
Saturday assorted links
1. How to ration access to scarce, reopening resources.
2. Will Australia do best? And America’s coronavirus report card (my Bloomberg column). And the correct Dan Wang link from yesterday (Bloomberg).
3. Derek Lowe on antibody approaches.
5. Yemeni Jew music video. And quelites: Mexico’s wild greens.
6. A thread threading threads on heterogeneous super-spreaders. Best update on this discussion I have seen lately.
7. A social distancing picnic blanket. And in Newfoundland and Labrador: the double bubble.
Coronavirus sports markets in everything, multiple simulations edition
For $20, fans of German soccer club Borussia can have a cut-out of themselves placed in the stands at BORUSSIA-PARK. According to the club, over 12,000 cut-outs have been ordered and 4,500 have already been put in place.
Here is the tweet and photo.
And some sports bettors are betting on simulated sporting events. (Again, I’ve never understood gambling — why not save up your risk-taking for positive-sum activities? Is negative-sum gambling a kind of personality management game to remind yourself loss is real and to keep down your risk-taking in other areas?)
Via Samir Varma and Cory Waters.
Limiting liability for a resumption of business activity
I have a short Mercatus policy brief on that topic, co-authored with Trace Mitchell. Excerpt:
Risk from reopening cannot fall to zero, but investments in safety by employers can bring real gains in many cases. Ideally, a plan should both minimize risk and encourage employers’ safety investments. In essence, policymakers should (1) limit liability in the short term to cases of recklessness, (2) use direct regulation to prohibit some obviously risky options, and (3) create and fund a COVID-19 compensation program while capping liability for covered entities.
To understand how this combination of options might work in practice, consider the simple example of the restaurant. Many states are allowing partial reopenings of restaurants, albeit with social distancing, which might comprise outdoor seating, limited seating within the restaurant, or both. Yet some practices that would be very dangerous in the current situation, such as open buffets, have been made illegal per se. This arrangement takes some of the highest-risk problems off the table, and for the better. It is also appropriate for regulation to mandate soap-and-water washing facilities for workers in all restaurants, to provide another example of a sensible regulation.
It is still necessary, however, for these businesses to have stronger liability protection, so that restaurants may proceed with greater certainty, and also solvency. While the number of future COVID-19 transmissions in restaurants is unlikely to be zero, restaurants can only do so much to limit risk, vulnerable individuals still can opt to stay away and indeed are likely to do so, and tracing particular cases to particular restaurants is very difficult. For all of those reasons, we do not expect the traditional liability system to perform well in the case of restaurants, and we wish to limit its applicability, while of course keeping other safeguards in place. In essence, our proposal takes that commonsense approach to restaurants and applies it to the economy more broadly.
I would stress that nursing homes require a fully separate treatment. Here is a related Marc Thiessen piece. Here is Ross Marchand on state-level experimentation with liability.
Alexander Wendt on why we should take UFOs seriously
He has more than just the usual hand-wringing, here is one excerpt:
Sean Illing
…What’s the Occam’s razor explanation for these UFO sightings?
Alexander Wendt
To me, the Occam’s razor explanation is ETs.
Here is another:
Sean Illing
If some of these UFOs are the products of alien life, why haven’t they made their presence more explicit? If they wanted to remain undetected, they could, and yet they continually expose themselves in these semi-clandestine ways. Why?
Alexander Wendt
That’s a very good question. Because you’re right, I think if they wanted to be completely secretive, they could. If they wanted to come out in the open, they could do that, too. My guess is that they have had a lot of experience with this in the past with civilizations at our stage. And they probably know that if they land on the White House lawn, there’ll be chaos and social breakdown. People will start shooting at them.
So I think what they’re doing is trying to get us used to the idea that they’re here with the hopes that we’ll figure it out ourselves, that we’ll go beyond the taboo and do the science. And then maybe we can absorb the knowledge that we’re not alone and our society won’t implode when we finally do have contact. That’s my theory, but who knows, right?
Here is the full piece, interesting and intelligent throughout.
Friday assorted links
1, “New York acted as Grand Central Station for this virus…” (NYT)
2. An “economics of epidemiology” paper incorporating Lucas-like mechanisms.
3. Who is at most risk from Covid? A new study based on very good NHS data.
4. Further new data on transmission. And useful overview of how Covid-19 “works.” Maybe it seems a little late in the game to be reading this kind of short survey piece, but it is actually the best one I’ve seen and it is quite up to date, recommended.
6. Sidewalk Labs abandons Google smart city plans. And new coronavirus calypso (video and music).
7. Why are coronavirus survivors banned from the military? How can that possibly make sense?
8. After reopening, people from neighboring states have been flocking to Georgia.
9. John Carmack defends the Imperial College code. Correction: that was Carmack on IHME, here is Carmack on Imperial College code.
10. Epidemiological model from some data scientists at Stripe (but not a Stripe product). Do you have any comments or suggestions for improvements for them?
11. Alex discussing vaccines on the Dan Proft show. And Dan Wang on America can’t build any more (Bloomberg).
Why is child abuse not opposed more passionately on the Right
From an email from Paul Foster:
From my perch, there are two primary reasons the right doesn’t more passionately oppose child abuse. The first has to do with parents’ rights. The general conservative view of the child welfare system is of a group of liberal ladies who think they know better than parents and who are especially skeptical of religious parenting, especially conservative Christian parenting. (The NYT op-ed opposing home schooling was an almost-too-perfect totem in that regard.) As a result, while many on the right will say “sure, flat-out abuse is bad,” they’ll assume that “abuse” will be defined eventually to include homeschooling, imparting religious views (especially on traditional gender roles), and the like. The early 20th-century attempt to eradicate the German language and culture through the public schools is often pointed to, as is (at least among the hipper conservatives (I swear we exist!)) that one Simpsons episode where a social worker gives demerits to Marge and Homer’s household for “toilet paper hung in improper overhand fashion.”
The second reason–and this is probably true for both the right and the left–is that you can’t even think of a solution by reasoning from your political views. “Adults shouldn’t beat kids” is universally accepted, but your views on taxes or your reading of Ayn Rand or that latest anti-Pelosi meme doesn’t give you anything helpful in actually stopping adults from beating kids. Without a political solution, it tends to fall by the political wayside.
Here are my previous recent posts on related questions concerning child abuse.
America’s reopening will depend on trust
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one bit:
The first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic brought serious economic damage for thinly capitalized face-to-face retailers, such as small family-owned restaurants. But many of those same institutions will lead the recovery — that is, if they have built up trust among their patrons. If they ask me to sit outside to eat my meal, I will trust that their kitchen procedures are “clean enough,” because I believe that the boss is watching [there I am referring to two of my favorite local places].
It is also worth asking whom I do not trust. When it comes to providing a fully clean and safe store, I do not trust most of the big-box retailers. I trust them just fine in ordinary times, but no single manager can oversee the entire cleaning and disinfectant operation. And can they monitor Covid-19 in the air? If they tell me that “all possible precautions have been taken,” I might believe their words, but I won’t believe that is enough.
And:
The NBA is wondering if it can resurrect its playoffs at a dedicated location with television coverage but no audience in the stands. So far the teams are hesitant, in part because they are afraid of public resentment if the league’s millionaire players have access to Covid-19 tests while the general public does not.
The reality is that if the NBA announced it was buying up a lot of tests, it would boost the supply of tests. That could provide testing with valuable positive publicity, with the NBA serving as a role model for what other businesses might do. Yet the NBA does not yet trust its fans to see things in such a positive light, and so reopening is delayed. There might be some danger to playoffs games without fans, but surely less than in, say, collegiate or professional football, where injuries and concussions are built into the very nature of the competition.
Which are the businesses that you really trust in matters pandemic?
Thursday assorted links
1. Tips for slowing livestock growth due to plant closures.
3. Florian Schneider has passed away.
4. Source code for the Imperial College model. And Sue Denim is very upset about the quality of that source code. Another reader with a strong technical background wrote me equally critical remarks. Are there further opinions on this?
5. Sujatha Gidla on her experience with Covid-19 (NYT), and here is my earlier CWT with her, one of my favorite episodes.
6. A new real-time journal COVID Economics.
7. Tankersley interviews Hassett and covers the brouhaha (NYT).
8. Effective Altruist forum ranks Fast Grants as one of their top two projects.
10. Jerry Seinfeld on success.
11. “A county in Washington State dealing with a coronavirus outbreak has identified a confounding new source of spread: “Covid-19 parties” organized so that people can deliberately mingle with an infected person in the hope of getting their own illness out of the way.” (NYT link) I wonder what they play for the music.
12. How are the social sciences evolving? Less rational choice, for one thing.
13. Why are meatpacking plants hit so hard? Holds true for numerous countries — is it the deliberate circulation of cool air?
14. Emily Oster and Galit Alter have a new Covid public health information site.
Save Grandma, Save the Economy
The meat supply is starting to fail. Meat processing factories seem especially susceptible to COVID-19 probably because of mist, chilled air circulation, the creation of aerosols and close worker contact. What other industries could be affected? What would happen if the energy, transportation, or pharmaceutical sector failed? We aren’t even sure which industries are critical. Who would have thought that nasal swabs would be a critical industry? In researching vaccine production I was stunned to learn that glass vials may be a bottleneck. Glass vials! How then do we best protect the workers in our critical industries? Should everyone else practice social distancing, closing of non-essential firms and work from home or should everyone else return to work as if everything were normal?
Social distancing, closing non-essential firms and working from home protect the vulnerable but these same practices protect workers in critical industries. Thus, the debate between protecting the vulnerable and protecting the economy is moot. “Lockdowns” protect vulnerable people and protect vulnerable industries. Save grandma, save the economy.
The point is simple but made formally in Social Distancing and Supply Disruptions in a Pandemic by Bodenstein, Corsetti and Guerrieri.
Abstract: Drastic public health measures such as social distancing or lockdowns can reduce the loss of human life by keeping the number of infected individuals from exceeding the capacity of the health care system but are often criticized because of the social and economic costs they entail. We question this view by combining an epidemiological model, calibrated to capture the spread of the COVID-19 virus, with a multisector model, designed to capture key characteristics of the U.S. Input Output Tables. Our two-sector model features a core sector that produces intermediate inputs not easily replaced by inputs from the other sector, subject to minimum-scale requirements. We show that, by affecting workers in this core sector, the high peak of an infection not mitigated by social distancing may cause very large upfront economic costs in terms of output, consumption and investment. Social distancing measures can reduce these costs, especially if skewed towards non-core industries and occupations with tasks that can be performed from home, helping to smooth the surge in infections among workers in the core sector.
Addendum: I wrote “lockdowns” because I am in favor of getting back to work with mass testing and safety protocols so I don’t think that a “lockdown” is necessarily the optimal policy. Indeed, I think we could get the meat processors back up and running with testing at the door and safety protocols. But we are not having a rational discussion about the tools and the investments that we need to reopen the economy. Instead, the people protesting to reopen the economy are also protesting against the use of a key tool to reopen the economy, masks! Welcome to crazy town.
What to Watch
My viewing habits are less hi-brow than Tyler’s, perhaps especially now when I am seeking escape and mind rest. Here’s a few things I have enjoyed and some that I have not.
DEVS on Hulu. If you know what the Everett interpretation is you will probably enjoy this science-fiction drama with big ideas on quantum computing and free will but also enough suspense, action and human relationships to drive the drama forward. From the director of Ex Machina. Sonoya Mizuno steals the show, super charismatic in an off beat way.
Westworld on HBO. A few interesting scenes but mostly disappointing.
Formula 1: Drive to Success on Netflix. I have no real interest in car racing but this documentary–each season is a season–is very well produced. Great shots from within the cars and each episode is tightly crafted, dare I say formulaic, so you want to watch the next. Popcorn but good popcorn. An extended version of Rush. I had no idea a team can cost $300-$500 million a year.
Bosch on Amazon. A police noir set in the real Los Angeles. Bosch is the Sisyphus of police detectives, driven to find justice for the victims but the victims never thank him, justice doesn’t bring them back and each day brings another. A study in character.
Extraction on Netflix. Awful. Brainless. If you want action, watch Fauda about a special Israeli Defense Unit. It’s well done and you will learn something even if what you will learn is how decent people turn into terrorists in an endless cycle of retribution and misery.
Impostors on Neflix: A light con-woman caper. Good for one season but harder to sustain once you’ve seen behind the curtain.
Beforeigners on HBO: My only share with Tyler. I look forward to a second season.
Top Chef on Amazon (I bought the new Season). Still my go to for competence-porn and don’t we all need some of that? Plus makes me look forward to restaurants.
Labor market restructuring and its possible permanence
We find 3 new hires for every 10 layoffs caused by the shock and estimate that 42 percent of recent layoffs will result in permanent job loss.
That is from a new paper by Jose Maria Barrero, Nick Bloom, and Steven J. Davis, top experts on this and related topics. As for policy:
Unemployment benefit levels that exceed worker earnings, policies that subsidize employee retention, occupational licensing restrictions, and regulatory barriers to business formation will impede reallocation responses to the COVID-19 shock.
Should South Africa lock down?
The lockdown will lead to 29 times more lives lost than the harm it seeks to prevent from Covid-19 in SA, according to a conservative estimate contained in a new model developed by local actuaries.
The model, which will be made public today for debate, was developed by a consortium calling itself Panda (Pandemic ~ Data Analysis), which includes four actuaries, an economist and a doctor, while the work was checked by lawyers and mathematicians. The process was led by two fellows at the Actuarial Society of SA, Peter Castleden and Nick Hudson.
They have sent a letter, explaining its model, to President Cyril Ramaphosa. In the letter, headed “Lockdown is a humanitarian disaster to dwarf Covid-19”, they call for an end to the lockdown, a focus on isolating the elderly and allowing children to go back to school, while ensuring the economy restarts so that lives can be saved.
The paper also is at the link, and it is perhaps more of a rough and ready calculation than a formal model per se. Nonetheless South Africa has a relatively young population and the core points are well taken:
In SA, they estimate that 5.4 years of life have been lost per Covid-19 death. They then multiply this by the range of deaths which they predict – 20,000 – as well as the actuarial society’s prediction of 88,000 fatalities. They factor in that the lockdown will have reduced some deaths, but not all. In the end, their model translated into a minimum of 26,800 “years of lives lost” due to Covid-19, and a maximum of 473,500 years. (This, critically, shouldn’t be confused with the actual number of fatalities expected from Covid-19.)
The actuaries then used the figures predicted by the National Treasury to model the impact on poverty. On Friday, the Treasury estimated that between 3-million and 7-million jobs will be lost due to the measures taken to combat the virus. The actuaries then work out that, conservatively, 10% of South Africans will become poorer, and as a result, will lose a few months of their lives.
It is a good question how many of the models used for the West have taken into account the “demonstration effect,” namely that poorer (and much younger) countries will be tempted to follow the same policies. I’ve yet to see a good discussion of this.