Are cruise ships a libertarian paradise?

by  Tyler Cowen in

The cruise ship Voyager holds more than a half-million gallons of fuel, five tons of meat, forty thousand eggs, and more than two tons of flour.  Its eight thousand passengers form a floating mini-city.  The cruise ship operator provides a large number of public goods.  Its laws are private, and imposed by contract.  Do not expect democratic procedures.  To the extent they treat you well, it is due to reputational concerns.  Many of the doctors and nurses do not have proper governmental credentials.  The laborers come from around the world, and the manual labor typically comes from very poor countries, such as Honduras or the Philippines.  Customers choose across a large number of cruises, and typically seek out similar demographics.  The sector is close to tax-exempt and encounters only minimal regulation.

Those facts are from Kristoffer Garin’s Devils on the Deep Blue Sea: The Dreams, Schemes and Showdowns that Built America’s Cruise-Ship Empires, an interesting new book.  By the way, this book claims that fraud and food poisoning are rampant on cruise ships.

Here is an article about seasteads as a means of realizing libertarian ideals.  Randall Parker proposes cruise ships instead of nursing homes. 

Outside of a brief Galapagos jaunt, I’ve never been on a cruise — I would not be able to stand the socializing, bland food, and forced confinement — so I am in no position to judge.  But if I were a libertarian anarchist, this is what I would be studying. 

Why are we organizing our kids so much?

by  Tyler Cowen in

The data confirm what I have long suspected:

Childhood’s outdoor pastimes are declining fast and the rate has accelerated in the past decade, especially the past five years, according to the National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA) annual survey of physical activity.

Since 1995, the portion of children ages 7 to 11 who swim, fish or play touch football has declined by about a third. Canoeing and water skiing are down by similar amounts.

The relationship between kids and their bikes is especially telling. In 1995, 68% of children ages 7 to 11 rode a bike at least six times a year. Last year, only 47% did. The sales of children’s bikes fell from 12.4 million in 2000 to 9.8 million in 2004, a 21% decline, according to Bicycle Industry and Retailer News,an industry magazine…

Children today tend to get outdoor exercise by appointment.

Soccer participation has been unchanged in the past decade – about 28% of kids age 7 to 11 play the sport. Soccer leagues and soccer camps are in full bloom this summer, although non-organized soccer games are uncommon.

Organized outdoor activities have kept kids moving. They are declining but much more slowly that unstructured outdoor play.

Little League participation has fallen to 2.1 million children, down 14% from its peak in 1997. But overall baseball playing – pick-up games, catch, pickle – has declined nearly twice as fast, the NSGA surveys show.

Here is the full story.  Now how about some hypotheses? 

1. Escalation of a signaling game.  You have to get those kids ready for college now.

2. Reference frames are relative, and an initial slight increase in parental paranoia has fed upon itself and has been bumping up safety and control standards for many years.

3. Suburban sprawl is a tax on spontaneity.  And as more kids get trapped into planned networks, it becomes harder to go it alone.

4. Parents have always wanted to exercise such control; only now has the ongoing growth of civil society provided the requisite institutions.

Any other nominations?

Facts about storage

by  Tyler Cowen in

Consider the four square feet immediately around you. Now consider that are you occupying your average per capita share of the Great American Self Storage Empire. According to the Self Storage Association, a trade group charged with monitoring such things, the country now possesses some 1,875 billion square feet of personal storage. All this space is contained in nearly 40,000 facilities owned and operated by more than 2,000 entrepreneurs, including a handful of publicly traded giants like Public Storage, Storage USA, and Shurgard.

What this translates into, apart from one hell of a lot of stationary bikes kept behind padlocked metal doors, is an industry that now exceeds the revenues of Hollywood (and doesn’t have to deal with Tom Cruise). One in 11 American households, according to a recent survey, owns self-storage space–an increase of some 75 percent from 1995. Most operators of self-storage facilities report 90 percent occupancy, with average stints among its renters of 15 months. Last year alone saw a 24 percent spike in the number of self-storage units on the market.

The causes?  Lots of moving, ebay sellers, massive spending on large consumption goods, and smaller (or absent) attics and basements in many new homes.  Here is the full story.

Indian Forecast Error

by  Alex Tabarrok in

India receives 90% of its rain during monsoon season so forecasting monsoons is critical for productive farming.  Fortunately, according to an article in Nature (subs. req.), the Indian Meteorological Department has found a way to make its forecast better than any other available – they have suppresed publication of the other forecasts.  The Indian government says this is necessary to prevent "confusion."

    The main competitor to the government’s statistical model, which has not reduced its forecast error in 70 years, is from an Institute based in Bangalore which uses a climate model.  The Institute and government forecasts can differ dramatically.  The Institute, for example, forecast that rainfall would be 34% below average in June and 12% below average in July while the government forecast "normal or above normal rains."

The rainfall in June?  35% below average.  No confusion about that.

Thanks to Robin Hanson for the pointer.

Department of Uh-Oh (another continuing series)

by  Tyler Cowen in

The Medicare drug prescription benefit is in trouble:

Crucial information, like the monthly premiums and the names of covered drugs, will not be available until mid-September.  After hearing federal officials praise the program for about 45 minutes, Joan M. Jenness, 72, of Bridgton, Me., said: "I heard nothing I had not heard before. I still have lots of questions."

Everyone enrolled in Medicare is eligible for prescription drug coverage. But public opinion polls suggest that many people have not heard about the new benefit or do not understand it, and many have not decided whether to sign up for it.

The economics of the new program depend on the assumption that large numbers of relatively healthy people will enroll and pay premiums, to help defray the costs of those with high drug expenses. Insurers say the new program cannot survive if the only people who sign up are heavy users of prescription drugs.

Here is the full story.  I am willing to buy the notion that prescription drugs do people more good than most other forms of medical care.  So a Medicare program, for a given level of expenditures, should not penalize drug expenditures.  But the benefit plan we are getting is surely one of the most ill-conceived pieces of legislation in modern times.

Racist tips?

by  Tyler Cowen in

We collected data on over 1000 taxicab rides in New Haven, CT in 2001. After controlling for a host of other variables, we find two potential racial disparities in tipping: (1) African-American cab drivers were tipped approximately one-third less than white cab drivers; and (2) African-American passengers tipped approximately one-half the amount of white passengers (African-American passengers are 3.7 times more likely than white passengers to leave no tip).

Many studies have documented seller discrimination against consumers, but this study tests and finds that consumers discriminate based on the seller’s race. African-American passengers also participated in the racial discrimination. While African-American passengers generally tipped less, they also tipped black drivers approximately one-third less than they tipped white drivers.

The finding that African-American passengers tend to tip less may not be robust to including better controls for passenger social class. But it is still possible to test for the racialized inference that cab drivers (who also could not directly observe passenger income) might make. Regressions suggest that a "rational" statistical discriminator would expect African Americans to tip 56.5% less than white passengers.

I’ve read the abstract but not yet the paper.  Note the authors wish to ban tipping [NB: they call it mandatory tipping] to limit racism.  Thanks to Mitch Berkson for the pointer.

My favorite movie – evolution of a concept

by  Tyler Cowen in

That is favorite, not "best," and the years are approximate:

1965 – something like Bambi, whatever

1969 – Them!, The Blob

1971 – Frankenstein vs. the Wolfman, with a nod to Ghidrah, The Three-Headed Monster

1973 – Diamonds are Forever

1977 – Star Wars

1980 – The Empire Strikes Back

1985 – The Magic Flute (the Bergman version)

1990 – Smiles of a Summer Night

1993 – Persona

1997 – Stalker

2003 – Scenes from a Marriage

I’m not going to tag anyone, but of course you are welcome to try your hand at this…

Steve Levitt’s poker project

by  Tyler Cowen in

How much more succesful can a player be if he knows the odds? What
are the best betting strategies for getting the most money out of a
winning hand? Are there simple betting strategies that can be used to
win money even with losing hands? To what extent does position from the
button and position relative to other players matter? Does having a big
stack of chips allow a player to bully others and win more of their
money? Do people lose big after winning a big hand, or does success
follow success? These are some of the many questions we would like to
answer.

Our
goal is to understand the factors that make players succesful at poker.
Many people have written books on poker theory, but there has yet to be
a systematic analysis using actual data on what works and what doesn’t.
University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt hopes to change this and
perform the first large scale analysis of poker.

Here is the link.  And by the way, here is Steve’s update on car seats vs. seat belts.  Furthermore most of Steve’s papers are now on-line.  Thanks to Chris F. Masse and Joseph O’Malley for the pointers.

Who eats meat without feet?

by  Alex Tabarrok in

Earlier I wrote, "We will soon need a new word for people who eat meat but not animals."  Most of the suggestions I got were awful (no, not your suggestion that was great).  Seriously, thanks to everyone who wrote.  Here are a few that I thought especially interesting.

From Brock Cusick, synthetarian.   I like it but I fear that synthetic still has negative connotation and we want a word that will be adopted by those who practice it.

From Chris Rasch, Cultivore, Cultivarian or Ameglians (scroll to Dish of the Day.)

From Travis Corcoran, Soylent-atarians.  Also good but a mite obscure.

In the end my choice is for VeggieTechie or VT, as in I’m a VT (also good for putting on restaurant menus).  Thus in the hopes of scoring a Google cascade:

Definition: VeggieTechie – a person who eats vegetables and synthetic meat but not meat harvested from an animal.

In the meantime AntiGravitas has another question, Is it cannibalism to eat vat-grown human meat?