Why Singaporean democracy is like a social media graph

by  Tyler Cowen in

The Singaporean polity is far more democratic than most underinformed outsiders realize.  Nonetheless it is frequently observed that the same party — PAP — keeps on winning elections.  Furthermore, there is an extreme method of gerrymandering, so PAP might win sixty percent of the vote and end up with ninety percent or so of the seats in the legislature.

Whatever you think of that arrangement, I expect it will prove difficult to undo.  In Singapore, civil service jobs are extremely important.  They are well paid and attract a very high quality of elite, and they are a major means of networking and advancing your own reputation, if only because so many other elites are in government as well.  (On top of that, the start-up scene is not so dynamic there, so the opportunity cost of public service is lower than in say CA or NYC.)

All that contributes to Singapore having an extremely high quality civil service.

But these networks have elements of natural monopoly to them.  If you are a talented Singaporean, of course you will view the PAP as the natural vehicle for your efforts, even if you disagree with a lot of PAP policies.  Working from within the PAP would be the most logical attempt to change the system, as there is “no other game in town.”  That is better for you, and it is better for Singapore as well.

So, if only for careerist reasons (put aside performance and reelection issues, though of course they are important), PAP is a self-replicating network that maintains a very high degree of influence over the Singaporean polity.  It is the network you have to join.

You could imagine the PAP someday suffering a shocking electoral loss, just as the election of Trump shocked many American elites.  But alternate parties would not have the talent infrastructure to staff their own regime with their preferred points of view, not with anything remotely resembling the current level of competence.  For better or worse, PAP affiliates still would be running most of the government.

And that is one reason — by no means the only reason — why it is difficult for Singaporean democracy to become truly contestable.

You will note of course that many American cities — some with roughly the population of Singapore — also keep on electing the same party repeatedly.  If you want to change Chicago city politics at the electoral level, working through the Democratic Party is probably your primary option.  And so this problem of natural monopoly political networks extends well beyond Singapore.

Singapore has less policy accumulation

by  Tyler Cowen in

…we find that Singapore (1) has only produced about one-fourth of the environmental policy measures of an “average” democracy and (2) is constantly the country with the lowest level of policy accumulation in our sample. These findings hold even when controlling for alternative explanations, such as the effectiveness of the administration and the government’s ability to opt for stricter and more hierarchical forms of intervention.

Here is more from Christian Aschenbrenner, Christoph Knill, and Yves Steinebach.  Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.

Peter Isztin on the incidence of AI

by  Tyler Cowen in

This short paper considers the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) tools on the division of labor across tasks. Following Becker and Murphy (1992) I posit a “team” with each team member being assigned to a task. The division of labor (that is, the number of specialized tasks) is here limited not only by the extent of the market, but by coordination costs. Coordination costs stem from the need for knowledge in multiple tasks, as well as from monitoring and punishing shirking and other malfeasance. The introduction of AI in this model helps the coordination of the team and fully or partially substitute for human “generalist” knowledge. This in turn can make specialization wider, resulting in a greater number of specialized fields. The introduction of AI technologies also increases the return to fully general knowledge (i.e.education).

Not a certainty, but definitely worth a ponder.  Here is the draft. 

My excellent Conversation with David Bentley Hart

by  Tyler Cowen in

Here is the audio, video, and transcript.  Here is the episode summary:

David Bentley Hart is an American writer, philosopher, religious scholar, critic, and theologian who has authored over 1,000 essays and 19 books, including a very well-known translation of the New Testament and several volumes of fiction.

In this conversation, Tyler and David discuss ways in which Orthodox Christianity is not so millenarian, how theological patience shapes the polities of Orthodox Christian nations, how Heidegger deepened his understanding of Christian Orthodoxy, who played left field for the Baltimore Orioles in 1970, the simplest way to explain how Orthodoxy diverges from Catholicism, the future of the American Orthodox Church, what he thinks of the Book of Mormon, whether theological arguments are ultimately based on reason or faith, what he makes of reincarnation and near-death experiences, gnosticism in movies and TV, why he dislikes Sarah Ruden’s translation of the New Testament, the most difficult word to translate, a tally of the 15+ languages he knows, what he’ll work on next, and more.

Hart is probably the best-read CWT guest of all time, with possible competition from Dana Gioia?  Excerpt:

COWEN: If you could explain to me, as simply as possible, in which ways is Orthodox Christianity not so very millenarian?

HART: Well, it depends on what you mean by millenarian. I’d have to ask you to be a bit more —

COWEN: Say the Protestant 17th-century sense that the world is on the verge of a very radical transformation that will herald in some completely new age, and we all should be prepared for it.

HART: Well, in one sense, it’s been the case of Christianity from the first century that it’s always existed in a time between times. There’s always this sense of being in history but always expecting an imminent interruption of history.

But Orthodoxy has been around for a while. It’s part of an underrated culture, grounded originally in the Eastern Greco-Roman world, and has a huge apparatus of philosophy and theology and, I think, over the centuries has learned to be patient.

The Protestant millenarianism you speak of always seems to have been born out of historical crisis in a sense. The rise of the nation-state, the fragmentation of the Western Church — it’s always as much an effective history as a flight from history.

Whereas, I think it’s fair to say that Orthodoxy has created for itself a parallel world just outside the flow of history. It puts much more of an emphasis on the spiritual life, mysticism, that sort of thing. And as such, whereas it still uses the recognizable language of the imminent return of Christ, it’s not at the center of the spiritual life.

COWEN: How does that theological patience shape the polities of Orthodox Christian nations and regions? How does that matter?

HART: Well, it’s been both good and bad, to be honest. At its best, Orthodoxy has cultivated a spiritual life that nourished millions and that puts an emphasis upon moral obligation to others and the life of charity and the ascetical virtues of Christianity, the self-denial. At its worst, however, it’s often been an accommodation with historical forces that are antithetical to the gospel, too.

It’s often been the case that Orthodoxy has been so, let’s say, disenchanted with the millenarian expectation that it’s become a prop of the state, and you can see it today in Russia, in which you have a church institution. Now, this isn’t to speak of the faithful themselves, but the institutional authority of the state — of the institution, rather, of the church more or less being nothing but a propaganda wing of an authoritarian and terrorist government.

So, it’s had both its good and its bad consequences over the centuries. At its best, as I say, it encourages a true spiritual life that can teach one to be detached from ambitions and expectations and the violent projects of the ego. But at its worst, it can become a passive participant in precisely those sorts of projects and those sorts of evils.

Recommended, interesting throughout, and yes I do ask him about the Baltimore Orioles.

Toward a theory of military loyalties

by  Tyler Cowen in

A critical element in civil wars is military fragmentation. Yet, we have a limited understanding of why military elites fight in civil wars and on what side. In this article I develop a theory of the economic and professional motivations of military elites. I test this theory using the case of West Point graduates in the American Civil War. I argue that in addition to home state, economic and professional interests were a major influence on West Pointers. Graduates with connections to Southern cash crops were less likely to fight for the Union and more likely to fight for the Confederacy. Higher ranking graduates were more likely to fight for both sides, as they were better positioned to compete for promotion. I test this argument using a new dataset of more than 1000 West Point graduates’ wartime allegiances and antebellum careers and find strong evidence in support of my expectations.

That is from a newly published paper by Peter B. White.

Wednesday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. More Okie-Dokie.  And some RFK Okie-Dokie.

2. Paul Robinson podcast on Russian liberalism.  And Classical Liberalism by Country, Volume III, is now out.

3. Nabeel’s notes on puzzles.

4. Do “multiple selves” adapt more quickly?

5. Markets in everything: People are paying to break printers with sledgehammers in smash rooms.

6. Claude 2 is now out from Anthropic.  And NYT coverage of Anthropic.

Can the School Choice Movement Liberate Childhood?

by  Alex Tabarrok in

Richard Hanania has a very good post on the rapidly expanding school choice movement and his hopes for a radical rethinking of education.

The first thing to point out about public education is that it involves an extreme restriction of liberty beyond anything we usually accept. How common is it for government to force you to be in a certain place at a certain time? What I call “time-place” mandates are rare. Sometimes you have to go to the DMV, but even then you spend a short amount of time there, and can generally choose when to go. Sometimes people have to respond to subpoenas or jury duty, but those are uncommon events in most people’s lives. Government says to do your taxes, though you only have a deadline and can fill out the paperwork whenever and under whatever conditions you want.

The only substantial populations of individuals who have their lives structured according to time-place mandates in a free society like ours are prisoners, members of the military, and children. The mandates for children have gotten less strict over the years now that all states allow homeschooling, but opponents of school choice for all practical purposes want to do what they can to shape the incentive structures of parents so that they all use public schools (liberal reformers tend to like vouchers that can be used at charter schools, but not ESAs, which give parents complete control). Of course, children don’t have the freedom of adults, and so others are by default in control of how they spend most of their time. But it’s usually parents, not the government, that we trust in this role. Given the unusual degree to which public education infringes on individual liberty and family autonomy, the burden of proof has to be on those in favor of maintaining such an extreme institution.

…To me, the true promise of the school choice movement isn’t that it might simply save a bit of money or avoid the worst excesses of public education. Rather, it presents an opportunity to rethink childhood…On what basis did we as a society decide that the ideal way to spend a childhood was to attend government institutions 5 days a week, 7 hours a day, 9 months a year, for 12 years? That most of that time should be spent sitting at a desk, with say one hour for lunch and one for recess?

My hope is that states with universal ESAs will see radical experimentation. Maybe some parents would send their kids to a traditional school for six months of the year, and then have them apprenticing or interning in the workforce the rest of the time. Imagine having a few months experience working at a law firm during eighth grade, grabbing coffee for corporate executives in ninth grade, following around a pipe fitter in tenth grade, and helping around a gym in eleventh grade.

I too would like to see radical experimentation in education but I’m struck by how conservative and homogeneous schools are, regardless of their public or private status. Private schools, despite having the autonomy, have not pioneered novel teaching methods. Montessori was innovative but that was a hundred years ago. A few private schools have adopted Direct Instruction, but how many offer lessons in memory palaces, mental arithmetic or increasing creativity?

I am enthusiastic about developments coming out of Elon Musk’s school and Minerva but it’s still remarkable how similar almost all private schools are to almost all public schools. The global adoption of a nearly identical education model is also disturbing, as I harbor significant skepticism that we’ve reached an optimum. I see this as more of an outcome of world-elite consensus, similar to what we saw with COVID policy, with basically only Sweden bucking the trend and coming under intense pressure for doing so.

Online education and AI ought to greatly expand the potential range of experimentation but the demand for experimentation appears to be low.

Hanania has more of interest to say. Read the whole thing.

Thinking about congestion pricing in terms of the quantity dual

by  Tyler Cowen in

Ask a YIMBY person: “What about the extra traffic from all those new people moving in?  Won’t the ambulance arrival times be slower?  Won’t the air pollution be worse?  Won’t….?” and you will get a reassuring answer that a) yes there will be some problems but they can be managed by other means, and b) the external benefits of new arrivals will outweigh those problems.

Fair enough.

But then ask that same YIMBY person: “What about the extra traffic coming from all these out-of-NYC visitors?” …and you will get a very different answer.  “Tax them!”

So the basic view, at current margins, is “residents good, visitors bad.”

Maybe!  But, to follow up on the recent debate, that differential treatment is never justified.  What if a guy starts visiting a girlfriend in the East Village — by car — for one night every two weeks?  Then he is a visitor to be taxed.  Say the relationship goes well, he is there 2/3 of the time, and he rents a space for his car in her apartment building garage and uses it periodically.  Is he then “a resident”?  Are his per hour externalities for the world then suddenly so much more positive?  (Does he stop spitting on the sidewalk?)

Again, maybe, but you can see the a priorism embedded in the standard “YIMBY plus congestion tax” mix of proposals.  Somehow the differential views on residents and visitors do not need to be justified.

If you wish, think of the cars issue in terms of quantity allocation.  There is only so much space for cars in lower Manhattan.  How much of that space do you wish to allocate to residents with cars or to visitors with cars?  (This question can hold whether you are doing the allocating with prices, with planning, or by some other method.)

If you favor YIMBY plus a congestion tax, in essence you think resident car use is better than visitor car use.

But how do you know that?  Repeating to me on Twitter that pollution is bad, traffic in NYC is too slow, externalities are present, and so on is a non sequitur that does not address the question.

Alternatively, you might think visitor car use is better at the margin.  Then you might place bigger taxes on cars garaged in lower Manhattan, and lower the tolls on the George Washington Bridge.

I don’t see a good a priori case against the visitors.  Maybe there are diminishing returns to being exposed to the genius of NYC, and at the margin we want to encourage the dad who drives from Westchester County with his 15 year old son to see a concert at the Village Vanguard, to get the kid excited about the saxophone.  Or maybe there are increasing returns to being exposed to the genius of NYC (you have to soak up book wisdom at the Strand for twenty years running), which would then cut the other way.

We do observe a lot of people living in NYC for a few years when they are younger, and then leaving for saner pastures.  But they move there to be moved and inspired for a while.  That suggests there is some temporary nature to the net benefits from the exposure to NYC.  We also see more generally, for political economy reasons, that status quo urban policies tend to favor residents and punish visitors to an undue degree.  And, if we stick with the pro-YIMBY intuitions and reallocate more road resources toward residents, do we not have to worry about the traffic, noise, and congestion from the required extra construction?  These arguments don’t prove any conclusion, but they do suggest there should not be an a priori bias against reallocating some traffic space away from residents and toward visitors.

The point here is to have consistent views across YIMBY and a congestion tax.  And if you think we should reallocate vehicle space more toward residents and away from visitors, please make a comparative argument to that effect.  Repeating observations about crowding and externalities is not an argument on either of these questions.

Addendum: For an extra point, “throughput” and “demand” are not the same.

I’ve been seeing this error frequently.  Congestion pricing may well increase throughput, which is how many users get through a road or some other chokepoint in a discrete period of time, say an hour.

It is much harder for congestion pricing to increase overall demand.  For instance, at a zero explicit price the ride takes much longer but overall more people will travel through than if you charge them $20 to do the trip.  That said, the $20 price may well increase throughput, but if it decreases demand there is still an opportunity cost from the policy.  Don’t use the possibility of higher throughput to argue the congestion toll does not have costs for many of the visitors (of course some visitors will gain due to heterogeneity effects).

China estimate of the day

by  Tyler Cowen in

The paper’s title is “The Largest Insurance Expansion in History: Saving One Million Lives Per Year in China”:

The New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) rolled out in China from 2003-2008 provided insurance to 800 million rural Chinese. We combine aggregate mortality data with individual survey data, and identify the impact of the NCMS from program rollout and heterogeneity across areas in their rural share. We find that there was a significant decline in aggregate mortality, with the program saving more than one million lives per year at its peak, and explaining 78% of the entire increase in life expectancy in China over this period. We confirm these mortality effects using micro-data on mortality, other health outcomes, and utilization.

It is striking how few Westerns have even heard of this policy, one of the more important global events in recent years.  I do however wish to ask if this estimate is in accord with other, more general estimates from the literature.  The Amish, for instance, don’t see doctors so often and their life expectancy seems to be perfectly fine.  The new paper is from Jonathan Gruber, Mengyun Li, and Junjian Yi.

Tuesday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. A skeptical view of the economics of Threads.  I am more optimistic, believing it is possible to grow total engagement.

2. More reasons why freezing your head won’t work.

3. Data on forecasting existential risks.  A Tetlock project.

4. The Pequod rates books, core book reviewing web site here.

5. “On the Importance of African Traditional Religion for Economic Behavior.”

6. GPT-4 research, some of it is gated.

Jeremy Howard on AI Safety and the Age of Disenlightenment

by  Tyler Cowen in

Proposals for stringent AI model licensing and surveillance will likely be ineffective or counterproductive, concentrating power in unsustainable ways, and potentially rolling back the societal gains of the Enlightenment. The balance between defending society and empowering society to defend itself is delicate. We should advocate for openness, humility and broad consultation to develop better responses aligned with our principles and values — responses that can evolve as we learn more about this technology with the potential to transform society for good or ill.

Here is the full paper, let us not forget these basic truths.  Should be put into the new Acemoglu and Lensman model!  (They do political economy, right?)

Michael Power on Kenya

by  Tyler Cowen in

With cyclical and Covid-related variations, of course, Kenya has been running a 5%+ GDP average annual growth rate for two decades. Since 1994, South Africa’s has, with an average of 2.4% per annum, not achieved half that. The contrast in performance is even more stark since 2011: in that year, South Africa’s GDP was 10.2 times Kenya’s; a decade later, in 2021, this ratio had fallen to 3.8. Meanwhile, according to Trading Economics, as South Africa’s current unemployment rate is 33%, Kenya’s is 5%…

And:

The first item to note in Kenya’s favour is the extraordinary “can do” commercial attitude that prevails no matter which political party is in power. Of course, there have been, are and will be differences in emphasis, but whether it is Team Uhuru Kenyatta or Team William Ruto that is calling the shots, both sides are unashamedly pro-business.

And before assuming that this means they are therefore anti-labour, that is simply not the case: more than halving unemployment to under 5% during the last decade is evidence of that. It helps that 86% of Kenya’s workforce now has some post-secondary education.

Kenya’s informal economy is vibrant, solutions-oriented and celebrated — far more than pooh-poohed — by politicians of every persuasion. Called in Swahili “jua kali” — “hot sun”, or, literally, “sun hot” — it operates outdoors and amounts to a training ground for industrial labourers, many of whom have gone on to “graduate” into more formal manufacturing activities, a form of tropical apprenticeship that even the Germans would applaud.

On a drive into the City Centre from Nairobi Airport — now much faster thanks to a Chinese-built highway — you can see roadside manufacture of beds, buckets, furniture, tin trunks, lamps, kitchen pots, jikos (ovens), coffins… you name it. And this is all happening at 8pm, well after the jua has gone down!

And:

GDP-adjusted, Kenya now receives more venture capital investment than anywhere else in Africa; its ratio of VC-to-GDP is more than triple “rivals” Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa. Unsurprisingly, these money inflows have helped reinforce Nairobi’s long-held status as East Africa’s financial capital.

And:

Remoteness in Kenya is no longer a barrier to generating power: a flight over arid northern Kenya on a sunny day gives the impression of a country littered with “glittering diamonds”. On-grid electricity has benefitted from solar too, as well as wind and thermal with over 90% of power generated now coming from these sources.

The 2030 target — which is well within reach as the country is ahead of its interim targets — is to generate 100% of power from renewable sources.

As noted above, for renewable energy projects, private sector financing is everywhere to be seen, from the single solar panel on a house to the giant wind farms of Kipeto and Lake Turkana: Blackrock is an investor in the latter with the US government helping fund the former.

And Kenya’s thermal endowment — born of the country’s geological position astride the hot steam vents of the Great Rift Valley — is the original underpinning of its renewable energy story: here it has benefitted hugely from best-in-class Icelandic technical support and finance.

Kenya still has major problems with foreign investment, as I have noted, but the Power piece is interesting on numerous fronts.