The Environmental Security Hypothesis says that in tough times men will prefer women who are good at production, generally older, taller, heavier, less curvaceous women with less body fat.  In good times, they will prefer women who are good at reproduction, generally younger, shorter, lighter, more curvaceous women.  Pettijohn and and Jungeberg look at the characteristics of playboy playmates from 1960 to 2000 and find:

Consistent with Environmental Security Hypothesis predictions, when social and economic conditions were difficult, older, heavier, taller Playboy Playmates of the Year with larger waists, smaller eyes, larger waist-to-hip ratios, smaller bust-to-waist ratios, and smaller body mass index values were selected. These results suggest that environmental security may influence perceptions and preferences for women with certain body and facial features.

Econometricians who wish to investigate further may download the data here (yes really).  The 2008 Playmate of the year, Jayde Nicole. does not seem to fit the hypothesis however.

The new trade theory starts with the observation that while this
[the old trade theory] explains a lot of world trade, it also misses a lot. France and Germany
sell lots of stuff to each other, even though they have similar
climates and resources; so do the United States and Canada. What’s that
about?

The answer is that there are many goods that aren’t like wheat or
bananas, but are instead like wide-bodied jet aircraft. There are only
a few places in which wide-bodied jets are produced, because of the
enormous economies of scale – you only want a couple of factories
worldwide. Those factories have to be somewhere, and those countries
that get the factories export jets, while everyone else imports them.

But who gets the aircraft factories, or the factory producing a
specialized kind of machine tool, or the plant producing a particular
model of car that selected consumers all over the world want? The
answer of new trade theory – and it was a tremendously liberating
answer – is that it doesn’t matter. There are many economies-of-scale
goods; everyone gets some of them; and the details, which may be
largely a story of historical accident, aren’t important.

Here is the whole post, which covers his work on economic geography as well and relates it to his work on trade.  As you might expect, it is a very good exposition of…Paul Krugman.

If you are wondering, one early writer who saw a link between trade, location, urban economics, and increasing returns was the 17th century British pamphleteer Nicholas Barbon; his full name was Nicholas Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon.  Barbon was also a precursor of aggregate demand theories of macroeconomics and an influence on Adam Smith.

But the Harvard economist [Dani Rodrik] finds the blog – short for Web log – useful because it serves as a reference catalog for his ideas. “I now constantly Google my own blog for ideas that I knew I had at some point,” he says. “Previously, the ideas would have come and gone. The first good thing is that I have them a little more developed, and, secondly, I can actually recover them.”

Here is the whole story, on the rise of the econ blogosphere, which has much from yours truly.  It is in this issue from the Richmond Fed, which has much of interest on economics and the economics profession.  Here is an article on experimental vs. behavioral economics.

Today you get more Felix Salmon, who nails it:

America’s banks — and the world’s, for that matter — have had de facto
unlimited access to very cheap Fed liquidity for many months now. That
hasn’t induced them to lend. Will this latest recapitalization do the
trick? I’m far from convinced. And what’s more, the demand for loans is drying up fast: do you
really feel like buying a bigger house right now, or taking out a car
loan? Well, businesses are in the same boat. In a recession, their ROI
falls, so they borrow less.

I am, however, a little worried about Felix’s proposal to make banks lend the money.  It’s not that I have a better idea, but I suspect any scheme of compulsion will bring either higher risk or ways to game the scheme or both.  And if bank shareholders and CEOs do not wish those loans to be made, our current system of corporate governance quickly becomes unworkable.

If you’re running an insolvent bank, and you get a slug of equity from
Treasury, your shareholders will thank you if you use that equity to
take some very large risks. If they pay off and you make lots of money,
then their shares are really worth something; if they fail and you lose
even more money, well, there was never really any money for them to
begin with anyway.

That’s Felix Salmon: read the whole thing.  Read this too.  Here is Megan McArdle on the pooling equilibrium.  Here is a good article on how Paulson "sold" his plan to the bankers.  And here are yet some more sentences to ponder:

So it in the end, we have what is basically an economic loan, but structured
in a way to game bank capital adequacy requirements. What strange times we live
in when Treasury and the Fed have to engineer a deal to circumvent their own
regulations.

The main new proposals would:

– for the next two years, give businesses a $3,000 income-tax credit for each new full-time employee they hire above the number in their current workforce;

– allow savers with tax-favored Individual Retirement Accounts and 401(k)’s to withdraw 15 percent of those retirement savings, up to a maximum of $10,000, without paying a tax penalty as the law currently requires for withdrawals before age 59 and a half;

– bar financial institutions that take advantage of the Treasury’s rescue plan from foreclosing on the mortgages of any homeowners who are making “good-faith efforts” to make payments;

– direct the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to create a temporary facility for loans to state and local governments, similar to the Fed’s new arrangement to loan corporations money by buying their commercial paper, which are the I.O.U.s that help businesses with daily operating expenses like payrolls.

Here is the article.  I doubt if the substitution effect generated by #1 is large.  I fear the precedent set by #2 and I don’t understand the enforceability of #3.  Savings withdrawals are in effect a form of fiscal policy and I don’t yet see how fiscal policy is supposed to cure us of our current mess, which is rooted in coordination problems.  Let’s hope #4 does not become necessary.  Of course it is before an election and each candidate has to propose doing something in addition to the status quo.  But a lot will happen between now and 1/20; fortunately these proposals won’t be taken very seriously.

Here are McCain’s proposals, I may discuss them soon.

Via Mark Thoma, Susan Woodward has an idea:

The true values of mortgage assets are generally thought to be a mystery. But
little-mentioned among discussions … of the crisis is that the Treasury has
access to the best resources in the business for estimating the hold-to-maturity
values of mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. This team is at Fannie Mae,
which the government now effectively directs.

You might laugh, or cry, but the reality is that most proposed paths out of the crisis involve a circularity problem.  And, courtesy of Chris Masse, here is another paragraph to ponder:

Krugman’s award could bring Bush face-to-face with his
antagonist. The president typically invites Nobel Prize winners
to the White House in November or December.