What personality makes a programmer?

by  Tyler Cowen in

…the personality trait most strongly correlated with programming ability was not introversion or conscientiousness, but openness: a trait that’s related to being creative and imaginative. What’s more, over time to the present day, openness has become a more important correlate of programming ability, while conscientiousness has become less important. This is speculation, but perhaps more creative people are today drawn to careers in programming because of all the opportunities for imaginative expression in a world of apps, video games, snazzy websites, and social networks. Finally, the traits of agreeableness (essentially how friendly someone is) and neuroticism (how anxious and emotionally unstable) were not correlated with programming ability, pretty much refuting the tired stereotype of the socially awkward programming geek.

A final thought: knowing someone’s personality and mental ability doesn’t actually tell you a great deal about their likely computer programming skills. Personality traits and IQ in fact only accounted for around 12 per cent of the difference between people in their programming abilities, which just goes to show that the very idea that there is such a thing as a computer wiz “personality type” is nonsense anyway.

There is more here, original research here.  I would put more weight on the second excerpted paragraph than the first.

Why are nominal wages so flexible in Ireland?

by  Tyler Cowen in

I am struck by the paper Wage Flexibility and the Great Recession: The Response of the Irish Labour Market (pdf), by Aedín Doris, Donal O’Neill, and Olive Sweetman.  The abstract is this:

Despite the importance of wage rigidity in macroeconomic models, no consensus has emerged in the empirical literature on the extent of wage rigidity. Previous attempts to measure wage rigidity have been hampered by small samples and measurement error. Moreover, results relating to earlier periods may not be relevant in the context of the large macroeconomic shocks that have hit many countries in recent years. In this paper we examine nominal wage flexibility in Ireland both in the build up to, and during the Great Recession, using tax return data that are free of reporting error and cover the entire population of workers. The Irish case is particularly interesting because it has been one of the countries most affected by the crisis. We find a substantial degree of downward wage flexibility in Ireland in the pre-crisis period. Furthermore, we observe a significant change in wage dynamics since the crisis began; the proportion of workers receiving wage cuts more than trebled, rising from 17% in 2006 to 56% at the height of the crisis. Given the large number of workers receiving pay cuts it seems unlikely that wage rigidity played an important role in unemployment dynamics in Ireland over this period.

One question is what then caused so much Irish unemployment.

A second question is why Ireland seems to have higher than normal nominal wage flexibility.

Could it be a greater than average willingness to endure living standard cuts without complaining?  The Irish after all didn’t protest austerity as much as did most of the other Europeans in a comparable position.  Maybe that means their wages can be cut without incurring the same morale costs.

Or could it have something to do with the “dual” nature of the Irish economy, namely that you either work for a multinational or you don’t?  If you work for a multinational, maybe they can lower your wages and still you will work hard to keep that job.

Any takers on these questions?

Marxian markets in everything, cemetery edition

by  Tyler Cowen in

On a summer visit to the grave of Karl Marx, Ben Gliniecki found that he would have to pay £4, or about $6, to pay respects to the man who sounded the death knell for private property.

Mr. Gliniecki, a Marxist, said no.

“Personally, I think it is disgusting,” the 24-year-old political activist said. “There are no depths of irony, or bad taste, to which capitalists won’t sink if they think they can make money out of it.”

The charity that looks after this cemetery has long taken swipe at a different irony: Karl Marx’s decision to buy a burial plot in a private London graveyard over the then state-provided alternatives. They say their cover fee subsidizes the upkeep of a cemetery where 170,000 other people rest.

And note this:

The German philosopher…once predicted the “hot tears of noble people” would be shed over his ashes…

The WSJ article is here, via Vic Sarjoo.

China fact of the day

by  Tyler Cowen in

The number of people sitting the 2015 qualification exam for broadcasters and TV hosts more than doubled from the previous year as China has tightened the ban on hosts without a certificate.

A total of 13,311 people sat the test on Sunday, compared with 5,908 in 2014. Some well-known hosts also took Sunday’s test, according to the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

The soaring number of examinees was believed to be resulted from a circular the administration issued in June. The circular banned guest hosts in any TV shows, including news, commentary and interview panels, reiterating that all TV hosts must have vocational qualifications.

The article is here, via Adam Minter.

New results on preschool from a Tennessee RCT

by  Tyler Cowen in

This is the most extensive and careful study of preschool (pdf) I have seen to date, conducted by Lipsey, Farran, and Hofer of Vanderbilt.  The core result is this:

The third question we addressed involved the sustainability of effects on achievement and behavior beyond kindergarten entry. Children in both groups were followed and reassessed in the spring every year with over 90% of the initial sample located tested on each wave. By the end of kindergarten, the control children had caught up to the TN‐VPK [preschool] children and there were no longer significant differences between them on any achievement measures. The same result was obtained at the end of first grade using both composite achievement measures.

In second grade, however, the groups began to diverge with the TN‐VPK children scoring lower than the control children on most of the measures. The differences were significant on both achievement composite measures and on the math subtests.

In other words, after some period of time the children who had preschool actually did worse.  I found this interesting too:

First grade teachers rated the TN‐VPK children as less well prepared for school, having poorer work skills in the classrooms, and feeling more negative about school. It is notable that these ratings preceded the downward achievement trend we found for VPK children in second and third grade.

So does preschool make kids more grumpy?  Immigrant children by the way did well:

…whether or not ESL children experienced TN‐VPK, by the end of third grade, their achievement was greater than either of the native English speaking groups of children.

Arnold Kling offers comment, and for the pointer I thank Peter Metrinko.

The culture that is French

by  Tyler Cowen in
The innovation-friendly Green party mayor of Grenoble, Eric Piolle, has ordered eight vending machines to be placed in the heart of the city that will dispense literary short stories to pedestrians for free at the push of a button.

The big orange terminals have three options – stories of 1, 3 or 5 minutes – that are printed out on thin recycled paper reminiscent of a lengthy shopping bill and can be tucked into a wallet.

“The idea came to us in front of a vending machine containing chocolate bars and drinks. We said to ourselves that we could do the same thing with good quality popular literature to occupy these little unproductive moments,” Christophe Sibieude, a digital publisher who pitched the idea to the city council, told AFP.

There is more here, via Ted Gioia.

Sunday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. Does divestment work?

2. There is a reason why it is called an aye-aye.  A good reason.

3. Rumors about coup risk in China (highly speculative, do not jump to conclusions, from the Sunday Times).

4. Is “NPR Voice” taking over the airwaves? (NYT)

5. Economics professor Eric B. Rasmusen files lawsuit against Citibank for tax evasion (NYT).

6. What’s up with electronic medical records?

7. Emil Gilels, Prokofiev piano sonata #3.

*Genghis Khan*, by Frank McLynn

by  Tyler Cowen in

The subtitle is The Man Who Conquered the World, and this is one of the very best non-fiction books of the year, quite possibly the best.  Virtually every page is fascinating and should be read carefully.  It makes intelligible a period of history which is so often a blur to the unfamiliar Western reader,and rather than just throwing a bunch of dates and facts at you it tries to make them intelligible in terms of underlying mechanisms.  Here is one summary bit:

The harshness of the Mongolian habitat and the complexities of nomadic pastoralism help to explain the many potentialities of Mongol society eventually actualised by Genghis Khan.  Care of massive and variegated herds and flocks produced a number of consequences: adaptability and ingenuity of response and initiative; mobility and the capacity for rapid mobilisation; low levels of wealth and of economic inequality; almost total absence of a division of labour; political instability.  Migration meant constant alertness and readiness to fight, since wealth in livestock is almost by definition highly vulnerable to raiding, reiving and rustling. Managing large animals was inherently more strenuous and dangerous than tending crops, so the very nature of pastoral life produced a hardier breed than would be generated by the peasantry.  Migration in peacetime also produced martial qualities via the surplus energy available for fighting, since in a pacific context warriors could leave the minutae of herding and droving to women and children.  when the fighting came, it was less destructive than for sedentary societies that had to defend fields of crops, cities, temples and other fixed points.

There were other military ‘spin-offs’ from pastoralism.  Moving huge herds of animals generated logistical skills and the capacity to navigate through uncertain terrain, coordinating with far-flung comrades while doing so.

Strongly recommended, you can buy the book here.

What I’ve been pawing through

by  Tyler Cowen in

Roger Lowenstein’s America’s Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve covers a poorly understood topic.

Bill Bryson’s The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island is nicely done but didn’t inspire me.  It’s already out in the UK.

Also arrived is Eric Rauchway, The Money Makers: How Roosevelt and Keynes Ended the Depression, Defeated Fascism, and Secured a Prosperous Peace.  I haven’t read it but Eric is always smart.

Jim Baggott, Origins: The Scientific Story of Creation (both life and the universe) trods a familiar path but does it much better than most, recommended.

Casey Mulligan, Side Effects and Complications: The Economic Consequences of Health Care Reform.

Is Chinese economic growth Solow catch-up growth?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Forget about the current troubles, or for that matter the current innovations, I’m talking about the earlier golden years.  It seems obvious to many people that Chinese growth is Solow-like catch-up growth, as the country was applying already-introduced technologies to its development.

But how many other economies have grown at about ten percent for so long?  Was there not a secret ingredient added to the mix?

Increasing returns to scale?  Understanding the importance of having networks which allow an employer to assemble so many engineers so quickly for a new project?  Something about Communist Party governance which enabled the corruption to be channeled productively into building more infrastructure rather than holding up progress?  Tiger Mom parenting combined with a relatively meritocratic exam system?

I do not find it unreasonable to postulate that two to three percentage points of that yearly growth were in fact due to innovation and increasing returns to scale in some manner.  Note that most of these innovations are useful only at China’s (previous) ppf and they are less valuable to the West, or perhaps simply not transferable.

More radically, is there some “natural,” culture-neutral rate at which innovations trickle down from the world leaders to the poorer countries?  The diversity of growth rates would seem to indicate not.  Is each country then not innovating — with varying degrees of success — by building its culture-specific net for catching and transmitting global innovations throughout the nation?

In which case we are back to catch-up growth not being entirely well-defined.

Romanian publish or perish

by  Tyler Cowen in

A change in the law in 2013 allows convicts to claim 30 days off their sentences for every work they publish while in prison. This has led Romanian tycoons and politicians imprisoned on corruption charges to indulge in a frenzy of scribbling. It is a system as corrupt as they are.

…Manuscripts must be written with pen and paper. According to Romanian journalists, wealthy prisoners generally hire outside academics as “research supervisors”. They, or other ghostwriters, do the actual writing; the work is then smuggled into jail, where the prisoner copies it out by hand. A publisher is paid to print a few copies, which are presented to the parole board, which (with no guidelines or expertise) judges whether it is worthy of a reduced sentence.

Most of the work has met with derision. Mr Copos, who wrote about the matrimonial alliances of medieval Romanian rulers, was accused of plagiarism. Mr Becali produced a picture-heavy book about his relationship with Steaua Bucharest, the football team which he controls. Realini Lupsa, a pop singer, wrote about stem cells in dental medicine. No one knows how many people have taken advantage of the system. One recent report put the figure at 73, with some prisoners producing up to five books in only a few months.

The story is here, via @DoubleEph.