Category: Uncategorized

Assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. Another list with different countries in a rank order.

2. Ross Douthat on Unnatural Selection.

3.  Not just CPI bias, and contrary to common impression per capita gdp growth rates also have been falling.  If median income growth rates are slower yet, that is a sign of potent rent-seeking by minority groups (finance, medicine, politicians, lobbyists, etc.).

4. Update on who is the world’s most traveled person.

5. Debate over whether ATM sounds are real.

Assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. There is still some low-hanging fruit.

2. Download many silent films here.

3. It turns out that Randall Dale Adams sued Errol Morris, for telling his life story in The Thin Blue Line (and thereby vindicating him and getting him out of jail).  And is Egalia funded by Swedish educational vouchers?

4. Edward Hugh on Spain.

5. Milton Friedman and the financial crisis.

6. David Henderson writes a critique of TGS.  He doesn’t contest that median income is nearly stagnant and that TFP is dramatically down since 1973; in the latter case, which clearly establishes the core point of the book, rather than admitting the conclusion he shifts the talk to the difficulties of predicting the future (though I stress that TGS will indeed end at some currently unknown point in time).  Both facts are prima facie evidence that innovations are not doing much to improve the standard of living of the typical person, especially compared to some earlier periods of time.  David is simply backwards concerning the argument on land; it’s not that land today is too expensive, it’s that extra land (we still have plenty of it in Nevada or for that matter Virginia) doesn’t have the marginal economic import it used to, most of all because of modern agriculture.  His numbers on land strongly support my point rather than refuting it.   The measured consumer surplus from the internet is small, not large.  The evidence that more education would yield a high return is quite strong, see the earlier post today.  I’ve written about the benefits of deregulation in plenty of other places but in this book I wanted people to focus on technological rather than political issues.

Don’t apply positive discount rates to human lives

by  Tyler Cowen in

Ben Trachtenberg writes:

This Article presents two new arguments against “discounting” future human lives during cost-benefit analysis, arguing that even absent ethical objections to the disparate treatment of present and future humanity, the economic calculations of cost-benefit analysis itself – if properly calculated – counsel against discounting lives at anything close to current rates. In other words, even if society sets aside all concerns with the discounting of future generations in principle, current discounting of future human lives cannot be justified even on the discounters’ own terms. First, because cost-benefit analysis has thus far ignored evidence of rising health care expenditures, it underestimates the “willingness to pay” for health and safety that future citizens will likely exhibit, thereby undervaluing their lives. Second, cost-benefit analysis ignores the trend of improved material conditions in developed countries. As time advances, residents of rich countries tend to live better and spend more, meaning that a strict economic monetization of future persons values the lives of our expected descendents above those of present citizens. These two factors justify “inflation” of future lives that would offset, perhaps completely, the discount rate used for human life. Until regulators correct their method of discounting the benefits of saving human lives in the future, the United States will continue to suffer the fatal costs of underregulation, and agencies will remain in violation of legal requirements to maximize net benefits.

I don’t agree with the “underregulation” argument (growth matters too, especially with a low discount rate), but there is much to be said for Ben’s argument.  Do note that there are numerous complications in any correct analysis of this problem.

*Unnatural Selection*

by  Tyler Cowen in

The author is Mara Hvistendahl, and the subtitle is Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.  It will make my best books of 2011 list, excerpt:

A recent paper in the journal Reproductive Health Matters states, “For women attempting to have a son and experiencing pressure to fulfill their ‘womanly duty’ by having a male child, sex-selective abortion can be extremely empowering.”  The other, more tragic factor…is that women know best just how difficult it is to be female.

…Liao Li also tells me she prefers daughters.  “Girls are very good,” she says.  “They’re soft.  And they take care of you when you’re older.”  But she aborted two female fetuses, she intimates, because having a son is crucial to keeping up appearances: “If you don’t have a boy, you lose face.”

Women have become, in a sense, their own worst enemies.  Development, remember, was supposed to improve the lot of women — and in many areas it does.  But when it comes to reproduction, the opposite happens: women use their increased autonomy to select for sons.

Here is one good review.  I also learned from this book how prevalent the sex imbalance problem is becoming in some parts of the Balkans.

Who is impressed by a British accent?

by  Tyler Cowen

From Christopher Shea:

The main significant effect found in this study was that people who’d lived at least three months outside the US rated the English accent significantly lower than people who’d only lived in the US. In fact, Americans who had not lived abroad considered the English-accented person to be much more intelligent than themselves, but the people who had lived abroad rated the standard American accent more intelligent than the standard English one.  My preferred way of interpreting this (a bit tongue-in-cheek) is that Americans are happy to rate the English as more intelligent than themselves up until they actually start meeting and talking to the English.

There is more here.

 

Assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. The last few times Brad DeLong has criticized me, he has simply imagined I hold positions which I do not.  Again.  And here is the time before that.  Perhaps he too quickly slots my views into debates he has with other people, when he sees some overlapping of claims.  On the first link, my point was to raise a certain “tension” in when market prices are considered sufficient statistics for “trouble” or not; I did not claim the two borrowing situations were the same or that currency denomination of debt is irrelevant.  On the second link, I’ve long argued we are seeing a mix of interacting AD and structural problems; Brad tries to refute me by showing — correctly — that there must be an AD problem in the mix.  It might be a valid criticism to note that in both cases I was not explicit enough, but a) that is not a “simple error,” and b) I’ve been plenty explicit in past posts and I don’t feel like repeating myself all the time.  I feel no guilt in putting some burden on the reader.

There is nothing wrong with the economics in Brad’s two posts, but in both cases he has failed The Tyler Cowen Turing Test.  Admittedly, it may be a difficult test to pass, but actually I should hope that is the case.

2. Retail politics, Argentina style.

3. Pizza discipline.

4. The economics of payroll tax relief.

5. Former GMU econ Ph.d. student now is Prime Minister of Somalia.

6. Here is one of my old attempts at an ideological Turing test.

Stuff I failed to blog while traveling

by  Tyler Cowen

The repatriation holiday for corporate profits is favored by neither the elasticities nor the macroeconomics; furthermore fiscal gimmicks are in general not a good idea.  Greece got worse and many Greeks are buying up gold.  “Enter democracy, stage right” is the next act in the play.  Paul Krugman tried to smack down John Goodman’s smack down, but didn’t quite succeed.  Krugman’s argument may well show “how the market does health care cost control” is unethical or unfair, but it does not show that the market fails at controlling costs, once we adjust for the relevant demographic variables.  And here is Austin Frakt.)  American health care cost inflation is best thought of as arising from the interaction of two dysfunctional systems, private and public, which are not so easily separable.  This debate failed, largely because of the rancor on both sides.  It is speculated that Andrew Sullivan’s new Daily Beast readers are less interested in clicking through to serious links.  IMF researchers felt pressure to align their conclusions with official IMF views.  The Mavericks played superb team defense without having many good individual defenders; Rick Carlisle apparently has read Keynes on paradoxes of aggregation.  The influence of the Tea Party seems on the decline.  I somehow fear that “music sent to the cloud” will screw me.  It will be necessary to fix (partial) middle class eligibility for Medicaid.  Ezra Klein’s budget deal reporting has put the competition to shame.  I decided I still believe that Nozick is a theorist of consilience, with different parts of the argument spread across various books and articles.  The Fed looks more and more like an unwrapped saltine cracker; Scott Sumner’s reputation will grow.  For one day in Turkey I missed no longer having a cat.  Magnus Carlsen recaptured #1 in the world chess rankings.  America failed to solve its long-run fiscal outlook.

I am still traveling.

Good anecdote for progressives (conservatives?)

by  Tyler Cowen

A couple of months ago Verone started weighing his options.

He considered turning to a homeless shelter and seeking medical help through charitable organizations.

Then he had another idea: commit a crime and get set up with a place to stay, food and doctors.

He started planning.

As his bank account depleted and the day of execution got closer, Verone sold and donated his furniture. He paid his last month’s rent and gave his notice.

He moved into the Hampton Inn for the last couple of days. Then on June 9 he followed his typical morning routine of getting ready for the day.

He took a cab down New Hope Road and picked a bank at random — RBC Bank.

Verone didn’t want to scare anyone. He executed the robbery the most passive way he knew how.

He handed the teller a note demanding one dollar, and medical attention.

The story is interesting throughout, here is another bit:

The ideal scenario would include back and foot surgery and a diagnosis and treatment of the protrusion on his chest, he said. He would serve a few years in prison and get out in time to collect Social Security and move to the beach.

The link is here (could he have signed up for the high-risk pool?) and for the link I thank J.T. Kounelias.

It took me a while to realize this is not satire

by  Tyler Cowen

I usually don’t link to bad pieces, or enjoy criticizing them, but there is an exception to every rule.  Excerpt:

Rational choice philosophy thus promulgates a clear and compelling moral imperative: increase your wealth and power!

Today, institutions which help individuals do that (corporations, lobbyists) are flourishing; the others (public hospitals, schools) are basically left to rot. Business and law schools prosper; philosophy departments are threatened with closure.

Or this:

The neat causality of rational choice ontology, always at odds with quantum physics, was further jumbled by the environmental crisis, exposed by Rachel Carson’s 1962 book “The Silent Spring”…

The author is a professor of Germanic languages.

I agree with Reihan that the recent web critique of Nozick, which I will not link to, was just awful.  David Gordon should write a critique of it and send me the link.

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.