Results for “status” 4123 found
Econ Journal Watch, and the status of classical liberalism
The new issue of Econ Journal Watch is online at http://econjwatch.org.
In this issue:
Evolution, moral sentiments, and the welfare state: Many now maintain that multilevel selection created a sympathetic species with yearnings for social solidarity. Several evolutionary authors on the political left suggest that collectivist politics is an appropriate way to meet that yearning. Harrison Searles agrees on evolution and human nature, but faults them for neglecting Hayek’s charge of atavism: The modern polity and the ancestral band are worlds apart, rendering collectivist politics inappropriate and misguided. David Sloan Wilson, Robert Kadar, and Steve Roth respond, suggesting that new evolutionary paradigms promise to transcend old ideological categories.
Evidence of no problem, or a problem of no evidence? In 2009, Laura Langbein and Mark Yost published an empirical study of the relationship between same-sex marriage and social outcomes. Here Douglas Allen and Joseph Price replicate their investigation, insisting that conceptual problems and a lack of empirical power undermine any claim of evidence on outcomes. Langbein and Yost reply.
The progress of replication in economics: Maren Duvendack, Richard W. Palmer-Jones, and W. Robert Reed investigate all Web of Science-indexed economics journals with regard to matters concerning replication of research, including provision of the data and code necessary to make articles replicable and editorial openness to publishing replication studies. They explain the value of replication as well as the challenges, describe its history in economics, and report the results of their investigation, which included corresponding with journal editors.
A Beginner’s Guide to Esoteric Reading: Arthur Melzer describes techniques and devices used in esoteric writing.
Symposium:
Classical Liberalism in Econ, by Country (Part I): Authors from around the world tell us about their country’s culture of political economy, in particular the vitality of liberalism in the original political sense, historically and currently, with special attention to profession economics as practiced in academia, think tanks, and intellectual networks.Chris Berg:
Classical Liberalism in Australian EconomicsFernando Hernández Fradejas:
Liberal Economics in SpainMateusz Machaj:
Liberal Economics in PolandPatrick Mardini:
The Endangered Classical Liberal Tradition in Lebanon: A General Description and Survey ResultsMiroslav Prokopijević and Slaviša Tasić:
Classical Liberal Economics in the Ex-Yugoslav NationsJosef Šíma and Tomáš Nikodým:
Classical Liberalism in the Czech RepublicEJW Audio: W. Robert Reed on Replication in Economics
Does changing immigrant status affect their wages?
Adam Ozimek reports:
A 2002 paper from Kossoudji and Cobb-Clark found that following the 1986 illegal immigrant amnesty, the wages of those amnestied rose 6% between 1989 and 1992. They found that the majority of the wage penalty of being illegal is due to an inability to move between occupations.
…The effect this will have on labor markets is complicated slightly by the fact that it’s not really a full amnesty. Instead it’s really a three year promise to not deport, and a three year work permit.
Deer nationalism and status quo bias
The Iron Curtain fell 25 years ago, but it seems that nobody told the deer.
A new study has found that a quarter of a century on, red deer on the border between the Czech Republic and old West Germany still do not cross the divide.
After tracking 300 deer, researchers said the animals are intent on maintaining the old boundaries.
One of the scientists involved told the BBC the deer are not ideological, “they are just very conservative in their habits.”
During the Cold War, electric fences made the Czech-German boundary impossible to pass.
Money, Status, and the Ovulatory Cycle (politically incorrect paper of the month)
That is a new research paper by Kristina M. Durante, Vladas Griskevicius, Stephanie M. Cantú , and Jeffry A. Simpson, and the abstract is here:
Each month, millions of women experience an ovulatory cycle that regulates fertility. Previous consumer research has found that this cycle influences women’s clothing and food preferences. The authors propose that the ovulatory cycle actually has a much broader effect on women’s economic behavior. Drawing on theory in evolutionary psychology, the authors hypothesize that the week-long period near ovulation should boost women’s desire for relative status, which should alter their economic decisions. Findings from three studies show that women near ovulation seek positional goods to improve their social standing. Additional findings reveal that ovulation leads women to pursue positional goods when doing so improves relative standing compared with other women but not compared with men. When playing the dictator game, for example, ovulating women gave smaller offers to a female partner but not to a male partner. Overall, women’s monthly hormonal fluctuations seem to have a substantial effect on consumer behavior by systematically altering their positional concerns, a finding that has important implications for marketers, consumers, and researchers.
Here is some popular coverage of the piece. For the pointer I thank C.
But is he on time for low status people?
Being 50 minutes late for his first meeting with Pope Francis was nothing unusual for Russian President Vladimir Putin. That’s just the way he is — a character trait that provides some insight into his attitude toward power.
When Putin arrived on time to an audience with Pope John Paul II in 2003, the punctuality was considered a newsworthy aberration: “The President Was Not Even a Second Late,” read the headline in the newspaper Izvestia. He had been 15 minutes late for a similar audience in 2000.
The waits other leaders have had to endure in order to see Putin range from 14 minutes for the Queen of England to three hours for Yulia Tymoshenko, the former Ukrainian prime minister. Few people are as important in terms of protocol as the queen or the pope, and there is no country Putin likes to humiliate as much as Ukraine.
The typical delay seems to be about 30 minutes. Half an hour is enough in some cultures to make people mad. Koreans saw Putin’s 30-minute lateness for a meeting with their President Park Geun Hye as a sign of disrespect.
Everybody endures the wait, though.
There is more here, hat tip to Elizabeth Dickinson.
Do anonymous donors signal higher status?
Here is a summary of some recent work by Mike Peacey and Michael Sanders:
New research that studied why people choose to make large donations to charity anonymously has found that it may act as a signal to other donors of the charity’s quality. The findings, published today, also show that anonymous gifts rather than public ones induce larger donations from subsequent donors.…the researchers indicate that the reason why a person may choose to show the amount they have donated but conceal their identity is because it may act as a signal informing others looking to donate of the charity’s quality and worthiness. Knowing this to be the case, a donor who wishes to see the charity succeed may intentionally choose to keep their identity private.
The findings also reveal that early donations are more likely to be anonymous than later ones, particularly for the first to a fundraising page.
Oliver Hahl on status and authenticity
He is on the job market from MIT, Sloan School, here is his intro, here is his home page. Here is one of his pieces (pdf), with Ezra Zuckerman, which I found fascinating:
The Denigration of Heroes: Why High-Status Actors are Typically Viewed as Inconsiderate and Inauthentic
We develop theory and report on experiments that address the tendency for high-status actors to be deemed—even by high-status actors themselves—less considerate and more inauthentic than low-status actors. We argue that this tendency, which potentially contradicts the fact that status is accorded on the basis of an actor’s capability and commitment, stems from two paradoxical features of typical status attainment processes: (a) The benefits of a high-status position typically carry an incentive to feign capability and commitment, thereby leading to suspicions of inauthenticity; and (b) Status is typically achieved through interaction patterns in which the high-status actor asserts its superiority and another’s inferiority, thereby leading to suspicions of inconsiderateness. Three experimental studies are designed to validate this theory and help rule out an alternative hypothesis, whereby the negative correlation between status and morality derives from a psychological need for viewing the world as just or fair–leading evaluators to compensate those who lack status with higher attributions of morality. Our studies, based on the “minimal group” paradigm, ask subjects to evaluate two arbitrary social categories based on members’ performance in a joint cognitive task. Implications are drawn regarding high-status insecurity and the sources of instability in status hierarchies.
As I do every year, I have been surveying some of the more interesting papers on the academic job market.
Does low socioeconomic status have to bring poor health outcomes?
Maybe not, from Edith Chen and Gregory E. Miller:
Some individuals, despite facing recurrent, severe adversities in life such as low socioeconomic status (SES), are nonetheless able to maintain good physical health. This article explores why these individuals deviate from the expected association of low SES and poor health and outlines a “shift-and-persist” model to explain the psychobiological mechanisms involved. This model proposes that, in the midst of adversity, some children find role models who teach them to trust others, better regulate their emotions, and focus on their futures. Over a lifetime, these low-SES children develop an approach to life that prioritizes shifting oneself (accepting stress for what it is and adapting the self through reappraisals) in combination with persisting (enduring life with strength by holding on to meaning and optimism). This combination of shift-and-persist strategies mitigates sympatheticnervous-system and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenocortical responses to the barrage of stressors that low-SES individuals confront. This tendency vectors individuals off the trajectory to chronic disease by forestalling pathogenic sequelae of stress reactivity, like insulin resistance, high blood pressure, and systemic inflammation. We outline evidence for the model and argue that efforts to identify resilience-promoting processes are important in this economic climate, given limited resources for improving the financial circumstances of disadvantaged individuals.
For the pointer I thank Michelle Dawson.
The status of scientists
When asked to name a scientist, Americans are stumped. In one recent survey, the top choice, at 47 percent, was Einstein, who has been dead since 1955, and the next, at 23 percent, was “I don’t know.” In another survey, only 4 percent of respondents could name a living scientist.
Here is more.
Raising the status of real business cycle theory
Garett Jones's guest post on El Salvador reminded me of a more general point: real business cycle theory explains 98 percent or more of the business cycles in human history, especially before the eighteenth century and the advent of modern financial markets. Some parts of the world still are ruled by real business cycle theory.
And yet somehow the theory has low status or sometimes is considered outside the mainstream. Admittedly, the theory can be misapplied or oversimplified by its proponents. Yet…it explains 98 percent or more of the business cycles in human history. It also helps explain the propagation mechanisms of monetary-based cycles.
I call that an important theory.
If only there were a textbook which taught RBC!
Status plateaus
Colin, a loyal MR reader, writes to me:
My girlfriend and I were having dinner at a swanky place…and noticed everyone had essentially the same phones–either an iPhone or some version of a Blackberry–which are the same models I see all over campus…It seems to me that with most items like cars, handbags, or houses, there are always more expensive/prestigious items one can get to signal a new tier of wealth, but with phones this is not the case (iPhones and Blackberrys look to be the end of the line, and are not particularly exclusive to the wealthy). We were curious if you could come up with any other items or industries that plateau like this–the only other we could really think of was media/entertainment (plateau at the NYT/WSJ; everyone sees roughly the same new released movies or tv shows). Thanks for your consideration and thanks for keeping up the excellent blog!
Other than reading blogs, what are further examples? By the way, here is the world's most expensive cellphone (beware: the pop-up at the link offers audio), at 300k, but I think your wealthy friends will simply laugh at you. Only 28 of them have been produced.
Status plateaus may be profit-maximizing when large numbers of upper-middle class customers wish to believe that they are enjoying the truly cutting edge technology and they are willing to pay for it. Creating the "iPhone plus for billionaires" would lower the demand for iPhones proper.
Hallucinators are more likely to heed high status voices
Here is the abstract:
This study examined three factors hypothesised which influence compliance to harm-others command hallucinations. The factors investigated were the perceived power of the commanding voice, participants' perceived social rank in relation to the commanding voice and to the others. Thirty-two male participants were recruited from forensic services. Participants were identified as belonging to one of the two groups: compliers or resisters. Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires were administered to participants. Beliefs, that the commanding voice was more powerful than the self and of a higher social rank than the self, were associated with compliance. There were no significant differences between the two groups on perceptions of social rank in relation to others. The significant findings of this study can be understood in terms of the relationship an individual has with the commanding voice and which are congruent with cognitive models of hallucinations.
For the pointer credit is due to BPS Psychological Digest. They also offer up this bit on how Republicans look more powerful or at least are perceived as such.
Status games among the Amish
Some Amish bishops in Indiana weakened restrictions on the use of
telephones. Fax machines became commonplace in Amish-owned businesses.
Web sites marketing Amish furniture began to crop up. Although the
sites were run by non-Amish third parties, they nevertheless
intensified a feeling of competition, says Casper Hochstetler, a
70-year-old Amish bishop who lives in Shipshewana.
"People wanted bigger weddings, newer carriages," Mr. Lehman says.
"They were buying things they didn't need." Mr. Lehman spent several
hundred dollars on a model-train and truck hobby, and about $4,000 on
annual family vacations, he says. This year, there will be no vacation.
It became common practice for families to leave their carriages home and take taxis on shopping trips and to dinners out.
Some Amish families had bought second homes on the west coast of
Florida and expensive Dutch Harness Horses, with their distinctive,
prancing gait. Others lined their carriages in dark velvet and
illuminated them with battery-powered LED lighting.
Most of the article concerns a recent bank run in an Amish community:
Only Amish people can join. The trust's 2,100 depositors receive
annual interest of 3.2%, while borrowers pay 3.5% interest on loans.
There are no credit checks. Monthly mortgage payments can be no more
than 33% of a borrower's gross income.
The trust's structure reflects the Amish philosophy of sharing. It
isn't insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., but by its own
bylaws it maintains at least $1 million in cash reserves. The trust has
never exercised its authority to foreclose on a home.
A sustained run wiped out the bank's reserves and now it has ceased lending. Probably it is hard to gather the data, but I would love to read a book Economic Life Among the Amish.
Does Santa have MFN status?
Dingel reports:
The US nominal average ad valorem tariff rate for (12 Days of) Christmas this year, which I calculated using the handy Harmonized (Tariff) Christmas schedule, is only 1.9%. I assume that Santa has MFN status.
Drums 4.8%
Pipes 0%
Milking machines 0%
Swans 1.8%
Geese $.02/kg
Golden rings 5.5%
Calling birds 1.8%
French hens $.02/kg
Turtle doves 1.8%
Partridge 1.8%
Pear tree 0%
I thank Alex Thiele, a loyal MR reader. But I believe the optimal tariff on drums is zero.
How does socioeconomic status cause health?
Probably most of you know the familiar result that social status is one of the best predictors of personal health, even when adjusting for other measurable variables. David Cutler, Adriana Lleras-Muny and Tom Vogl have looked at the evidence more carefully and come up with the following:
This paper reviews the evidence on the well-known positive association
between socioeconomic status and health. We focus on four dimensions of
socioeconomic status — education, financial resources, rank, and race
and ethnicity — paying particular attention to how the mechanisms
linking health to each of these dimensions diverge and coincide. The
extent to which socioeconomic advantage causes good health varies, both
across these four dimensions and across the phases of the lifecycle.
Circumstances in early life play a crucial role in determining the
co-evolution of socioeconomic status and health throughout adulthood.
In adulthood, a considerable part of the association runs from health
to socioeconomic status, at least in the case of wealth. The diversity
of pathways casts doubt upon theories that treat socioeconomic status
as a unified concept.
In other words, "we don’t know." My simplistic view has long been that high status simply helps "keep the juices flowing," in Roissy-like fashion, and that’s good for you all over.
Can any of you high-status people find an ungated copy?