Category: Uncategorized
Assorted links
1. Three frank questions about your research.
2. NYU Stern School now has some class macro materials on-line, and some short Jeff Ely videos on microeconomics.
3. The backlash against foodies, and the Swiss are at the Ricardian margin with cows. No SMS in Romansch? But is it art?
4. The new approach of Jeffrey Sachs and the UN to sustainable development.
5. Pakistan in the past, with photos.
6. My earlier post on how to improve the Presidential debates.
Baumol’s new book on the cost disease
It is self-recommending, here are a few points of relevance:
1. There has been a clear cost disease in most kinds of education and many kinds of medicine, but I blame institutions and laws as much as the intrinsic nature of the product.
2. I do not see the arts as subject to the cost disease very much at all. As for the “live performing arts,” the disease seems to afflict the older and less innovative sectors, such as opera and the symphony. There is plenty of live music these days, it is offered in innovative ways, and much of it is free.
3. Even “the live performing arts” can be broken down into underlying characteristics, many of which show a great deal of recent innovation. For instance the supply of “musical immediacy” has been non-stagnant through YouTube, which often gives you a better glimpse of the performer than you get through nosebleed seats and giant screens. YouTube isn’t “live,” but there is no particular reason to break down the analysis at that level and certainly it is not a sacred category for consumers.
4. In many sectors of the arts, especially music, consumers demand constant turnover of product. Old music becomes “obsolete” — for whatever sociological reasons — and in this sense the sector is creating lots of new value every year. From an “objectivist” point of view they are still strumming guitars with the same speed, but from a subjectivist point of view — the relevant one for the economist – they are remarkably innovative all the time in the battle against obsolescence. A lot of the cost disease argument is actually an aesthetic objection that the art forms which have already peaked — such as Mozart — sometimes have a hard time holding their ground in terms of cost and innovation.
5. In general “cost disease” sectors do not remain constant over time. Agriculture has been unusually stagnant for the last twenty or so years, but it is hardly obvious that this trend will continue for the next century to come and it certainly was not the case for the period 1948-1990, quite the contrary.
6. The stagnancy of one sector may depend on the stagnancy of other sectors in non-transparent ways. “Live music” may seem like it doesn’t change much, but lifting the embargo on Cuba would boost the quantity and quality of my consumption of spectacular concert experiences, as would a non-stop flight to Haiti.
You can buy the book here.
Addendum: Matt Yglesias comments.
Raj Chetty wins a MacArthur fellowship
The story and list of other winners is here. Here is Chetty on scholar.google.com.
Assorted links
1. “A woman who lost her ear grew a second one on her arm…”
2. Where do Indian billionaires get their wealth?
3. Mathematics at Google (recommended).
4. The divorce of Paul Romer and Honduras.
5. The French grape-picking robot.
6. “Tyler is trying to sphincter us,” and Joshua Gans at Forbes covers MRU.
Maybe today you should go visit MRUniversity.com
The link is here, and we thank you for your interest. Read Alex’s opening statement for more information:
Welcome to MRU! At right you will find our first course, Development Economics. Click the + to see the videos in each section. New sections will be released at the beginning of every week and there will be bonus sections released during the middle of some weeks. Practice questions for each video provide some simple feedback.
Anyone can watch videos and take the practice questions but to truly participate by asking and answering questions, posting material, partcipating in chats and so forth you will need to register. Please do register as this will also help us to plan for future courses. There is no charge for registering.
In order to make our material as widely available as possible the videos default to low resolution, 380p, but if you have good bandwidth we recommend bumping them up to 480p which will increase video and audio resolution. You can do this on many platforms (not all) by clicking near the bottom right of the video and then clicking the settings button.
The course is designed for videos but every lecture also includes a downloadable MP3 in the section Related Materials.
The “How to Use” section (link in bar at top), includes ideas such as flipping the classroom and some basic directions for making your own videos.
In coming weeks, we will be releasing new features and announcing virtual and live chats!
Assorted links
1. The reality vs. the rhetoric, multiple lessons in this one.
2. John Fahey documentary (trailer) on the way (Kickstarter funded), and on YouTube here is Fahey’s Poor Boy.
3. Stephanie Coontz tries to rebut claims of male decline (though I don’t think she quite confronts the “matching model” being used here).
4. The economics of video games.
Assorted links
Seoul food bleg
Maybe Alex’s request wasn’t quite specific enough. Where should I (we) eat in Seoul, and what should we order? What are the general principles for finding good food in Korea, Busan included? Your assistance is much appreciated.
Assorted links
1. “Warum schon die deutsche Einheit ein Fehler war,” from the excellent Wolfgang Münchau.
2. The Daily Mail on whether economics and finance students have more sex. Guess which major offers and indeed creates (supposedly) the most promiscuous students? The least promiscuous are majors in philosophy, education, and earth sciences, or so we are told. Caveat emptor.
3. Lady Gaga markets in everything very negative restaurant review.
4. A more optimistic measurement of Spanish deposit flight.
5. Jazz-singing robots, and the electronic implants that dissolve inside your body.
More on the ngdp debates
Lots of content, here is Scott Sumner, David Beckworth, Ryan Avent, and Angus (the most negative on ngdp theorizing of the lot). There is no Bill Woolsey post as of yet.
Assorted links
Is the Great Mirror Stagnation over?
“There hasn’t been much innovation with the mirror,” said Ming-Zher Poh, who, as a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, developed a bio-sensing system called the Medical Mirror.
Introduced in 2010, the Medical Mirror uses a camera to measure a person’s pulse rate based on slight variations in the brightness of the face as blood flows each time the heart pumps. A two-way mirror creates a reflection while keeping visible the pulse reading on a computer monitor behind the mirror’s surface.
And this:
Japanese electronics conglomerate Panasonic Corp. initially considered targeting household consumers with its digital mirror—a flat-screen display powered by a computer behind a two-way mirror—but the company decided to target business customers instead because of the price.
In July, Panasonic started accepting orders for its mirror—priced at nearly Y3 million ($38,000)—targeting physical rehabilitation centers.
At the Yokohama Rehabilitation Center in Japan, a test site for the device, 77-year-old Takao Yamamura uses the digital mirror to rehabilitate after suffering extensive nerve damage following a spinal cord infarction.
The full article is here. One problem is that consumers do not buy new mirrors very often, plus they are used to prices below $38k.
Assorted links
It’s the bias against stale labor, not the sticky nominal wages
At this point, at least. Read this bit from Chris Blattman. Apparently, most of the staleness sets in within eight months. Note, by the way, that this explanation simultaneously can account for a) unemployment not being very nice for the unemployed, and b) inability to use lower wage demands to get a job, even with ngdp ten percent above its pre-crisis peak.
Assorted links
1. What Emma Thompson likes to read.
2. is there a poet for romney?
3. The sad tale of infrastructure in Valencia.
4. Beijing’s dangerous game, and the economics behind the islands dispute.
5. Felix Salmon encounters Joseph Stiglitz and theology.
6. New Chronicle story of neuroeconomics, and there is no great stagnation.