What do the laws against driverless cars look like?

by  Tyler Cowen

A few people have asked me this question, here is one example, from Falls Church City:

No person shall operate a motor vehicle upon the streets of the city without giving full time and attention to the operation of the vehicle.

Of course that wasn’t intended as a law against driverless cars per se, but that would be its practical effect.  Ask yourself the following question: let’s say you sat in the back seat, singing rap songs with your shirt off, while the computer piloted the car flawlessly.  In a 35 mile per hour zone, the car would go exactly 35 mph and you would smile and wave — with both hands — at each police officer you passed.  For effect, you could stick your two feet out the window as well.  How long could you go before they pulled you over?  How far could you get?  When would you get your car back, with computer of course?  How would they respond if you asked: “Officer, please show me where in the books this is illegal?”  In which state would that question go over best?  Worst?

Liability and public opinion issues loom larger still.  The driverless car, if it proves feasible, is most likely to come first to a smaller, higher-trust nation such as Denmark.  In some countries, if the government announces “X is safe” people believe “X is safe.”  The United States is not one of those countries.

What happens if you respond to spam?

by  Tyler Cowen in

While doing some spam research a couple of years ago, we did a series of test purchases from spam e-mails.

We bought pills, software, cigarettes, et cetera. We were a bit surprised that almost all of the orders went through and actually delivered goods. Sure, the Windows CD we got was a poor clone and the Rolex was obviously fake, but at least they sent us something.

We were carefully watching the credit card accounts we created for our tests but we never saw any fraudulent use of them.

The most surprising outcome from this test was that we didn’t see more spam to the e-mail addresses we used to order the goods.

Via Eapen Thampy, the link is here and they cite a new study on spam (pdf), which is interesting throughout.  How does the financial side work?

One of the most interesting details in the study is this: almost all spam sales worldwide are handled by just three banks.

The banks? They were:

•  DnB NOR (a Norwegian bank)
•  St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank (in the Caribbean)
•  Azerigazbank (from Azerbaijan)

The next Fed nominee

by  Tyler Cowen in

1. Should have spent a lot of time talking to Republicans.

2. When meeting with Ron Paul, the following should come to his mind: “I have great respect for the proponents of hard money and I view them as one reason why America became great again, in the 1980s.  I know you think the minimum wage is worse than we at the Fed do, so please let me bring one argument to your attention.  Unemployment is very high now, perhaps in part because the minimum wage has raised forty percent in the midst of a downturn a few years ago.  But those statists in Congress simply will not vote to lower or abolish the minimum wage, damn them.  We can, however, surreptitiously lower the minimum wage in real terms with a bit of loose monetary policy.  I know you are not with us on this monetary issue, but if you find yourself having to strike a compromise of some kind, at least rest assured that a budge from your side would be liberating millions of lower-income Americans from slavery.  It could get us off the Road to Serfdom.”

The Fed governor doesn’t have to believe that, and may not wish to say exactly that, but a speech of that nature should come rather quickly to his or her mind.  If not, he or she is probably not the right nominee in the first place.  The Fed staff can figure out the rest.

Addendum: Matt Yglesias offers relevant comment.  Alternatively, Felix Salmon may be correct that there is no deal to be made with the Republicans.  In that case, a) Diamond would not have mattered anyway, and b) we still should base the choice upon the scenarios where the choice stands a chance of making a difference.  Furthermore, the Republican reps. do not have the same incentives as the Presidential candidate, so a deal may be possible after all.

The new British university model?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Well, it’s certainly star-studded. A new private university in London, devoted to the humanities, will have the philosopher and public intellectual A.C. Grayling as its “master.” Richard Dawkins will teach evolutionary biology, Niall Ferguson economic history, Steven Pinker psychology, and Ronald Dworkin the philosophy of law.

Christopher Shea has more.  Daniel Davies notes correctly that few if any of these illustrious names will be resigning their normal academic posts.  That is the real innovation of this business model.  Why not rent illustrious names rather than paying the whole set of fixed costs?  Then hire excellent teachers — mostly not top researchers — to provide most of the actual instruction.  If say Dawkins teaches an intensive two-week course, that is perhaps more than a student would see of him anywhere else, while benefits of certification and affiliation remain in play.  I predict this has a good chance of succeeding, and since the illustrious lecturers hold equity shares in the venture, their incentive is to talk it up.  It doesn’t have to outcompete Harvard, it simply has to draw international interest from students/families who cannot get into Harvard or who do not wish to donate the required $$.

The Archimedean axiom

by  Tyler Cowen in

What else does one blog from Siracusa?

(A.3) Archimedean Axiom: if p, q, r Î D (X) such that p >h q >h r, then there is an a , b Î (0, 1) such that a p + (1-a )r >h q and q >h b p + (1-b )r.

…The Archimedean Axiom (A.3) works like a continuity axiom on preferences. It effectively states that given any three lotteries strictly preferred to each other, p >h q >h r, we can combine the most and least preferred lottery (p and r) via an a Î (0, 1) such that the compound of p and r is strictly preferred to the middling lottery q and we can combine p and r via a b Î (0, 1) so that the middling lottery q is strictly preferred to the compound of p and r. Notice that one really needs D (X) to be a linear, convex structure to have (A.3).

The full treatment is here.  In other words, the Archimedean Axiom means no lexicographic preferences for certainty.  For some expected reward, you will accept a very small chance of a very bad outcome.  Either extreme fear, or an extreme attachment to a symbolic value, or an extreme attachment to a “no stochastic trade-offs” principle can stop an Archimedean axiom from holding.  There is further analysis here.  Here is Wikipedia on Archimedes, a very impressive figure.

Markets in everything

by  Tyler Cowen in

The 10-employee park has five pieces of machinery, including a pair of Caterpillar D5 track-type bulldozers and three Caterpillar 315CL hydraulic excavators. Dig This sells three-hour packages that consist of a 30-minute safety and operation orientation followed by two hours of maneuvering either a bulldozer or excavator.

Guests can either dig a trench up to 10 ft deep or build an earthen mound; there are also skill tests like picking and moving 2,000-lb tires or scooping basketballs from atop safety cones. 

Packages are priced at $400, which reflects equipment maintenance and insurance costs. Patrons 14 and older can play in the dirt.

“Half of our customers are females, including housewives and grandmothers,” says company spokeswoman Cathy Wiedemer. “Throttling up a powerful engine and moving mounds of earth is very empowering.”

The full story is here and for the pointer I thank Chug.

David Henderson on Medicare price controls

by  Tyler Cowen in

It is often debated whether a cut in Medicare reimbursement rates should be counted as a “price control.”  David Henderson adds a valuable point:

…a year or two after I left the Council, the Reagan administration took the next step of imposing price controls on doctors under Medicare. Doctors were no longer allowed to do what was variously called “extra bill” or “balance bill.” They couldn’t charge even a penny more than Medicare paid. That’s what made it a system of price controls. Moreover, under later regulations, if a doctor takes even one Medicare patient, then he has to charge Medicare rates to all his Medicare patients even if those patients would rather ensure access by paying the whole bill (Medicare plus a doctor’s additional charge) out of their own pocket. It is this system of price controls that is causing many doctors to take no Medicare patients.

Here is more.  Bryan Caplan comments, and Greg Mankiw’s recent post is relevant too.

The laws and judgments that are French

by  Tyler Cowen in

In a controversial move the French government has said that it will enforce a law so that the words ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’ will not be allowed to be spoken on the television or on the radio.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s colleagues have agreed to uphold a 1992 decree which stipulates that commercial enterprises should not be promoted on news programs.

Broadcasting anchors from now on are forbidden to refer to the popular social networking site and the microblogging phenomenon, unless it is pivotal and relevant to a news item.

If you are not happy with links to The Daily Mail, here are other sources.  I thank a loyal MR reader for the pointer.