Results for “singapore best” 97 found
Wednesday assorted links
1. Those new service sector jobs: “Florida’s best-known industries include citrus, seafood and selling tacky souvenirs to tourists. But there’s one booming Florida industry that hardly ever gets a mention from the Chamber of Commerce folks.
Mermaids.
All over the state there are now scores of women — and a few men — who regularly pull on prosthetic tails and pretend to be those mythical creatures made popular by Hans Christian Anderson and Walt Disney. Some do it for fun, but quite a few are diving into it as a business, charging by the hour to appear at everything from birthday parties to political events.”
2. Robin Hanson Age of Em paperback is now out.
3. Ethiopia agrees to abide by its earlier peace and boundary agreement with Eritrea (NYT, big news).
Friday assorted links
1. Some complicated results about how education does and does not strengthen various life skills.
2. Patrick Collison interview, read or listen.
3. Chokers are the best people.
4. EconomistsforTrump. Interestingly, several GMU people have signed, but none in the economics department.
5. The University of Chicago macro prelim from 1969.
6. “L.A.’s Hottest New Real-Estate Amenity: Walkability” (WSJ, file under Prophets of the Marginal Revolution)
The hidden taxes that challenge women
That is the new and excellent Sendhil Mullainathan NYT column, here is one excerpt from many good points:
Corporate success has similar consequences: Women who become chief executives divorce at higher rates than others.
Another study found that the same is true in Hollywood: Winning the best actress Oscar portends a divorce, while winning the best actor award does not.
Of course, the divorce itself may be a preferred outcome, one that is better than enduring a poisonous relationship. Even then, I’d argue that the tax was exacted in the emotional toll and the time lost in a failed marriage.
Men react particularly negatively to their spouses’ relative success. Marianne Bertrand and Emir Kamenica, economists at the University of Chicago, and Jessica Pan, an economist at the National University of Singapore, examined the wages of spouses. Because women generally earn less in the work force, they generally earn less than their husbands, too.
What is more surprising in the data is that it is far more common for the husband to earn just a tiny bit more than the wife than the other way around. The fact that women on average earn less does not account for such a sharp asymmetry.
The piece is interesting throughout.
Wednesday assorted links
1. Swedish summer seminar in classical liberalism. And Bryan Caplan says something nice about me (I am not suggesting this is rare, though).
2. Personal bests act as reference points.
3. “In the inner London borough of Wandsworth, a home measuring just 91 inches across is on the market for about $1.4 million (£1 million).” Link here.
4. Who will be the next PM of Singapore?
5. Jerry Z. Muller on the tyranny of metrics.
6. Vincent Geloso’s nominations for the best economic history papers of 2017.
Thursday assorted links
3. The bestselling musical artists of all time?
4. Panasonic moving fridge, comes to you when called.
5. “Today, humanity lives in a relatively quiet volcanic period.” (NYT)
6. Margot Sanger-Katz on cutting off the insurance company subsidies (NYT).
7. A tale of non-replication in social psychology (NYT). An important piece, related also to the issues surrounding blogs, what you can/should believe, and positive vs. negative coverage. And Gelman responds.
The conservation of coercion?
These aspects raise an uncomfortable possibility for libertarians: is there a sort of law of conservation of coercion in well-functioning societies? A community with a minimal state can only function if it is thick enough and homogeneous enough to enforce sanctions for antisocial behavior that are almost state-like in their severity, and, furthermore, can make them stick. Freeing individuals from their smothering parochialisms will lead to a compensating increase in the scope and reach of the state as people search for a new solution to social dilemmas formerly handled via informal means. Conversely, attempts to suddenly curtail state power may lead to chaos in the intervening period when social institutions have not yet reasserted themselves. Principled libertarians might still have good reasons to prefer the non-state forms of compulsion—among them the arguments from public choice economics and a federalist preference for decisions being made at the lowest feasible level, where actors are most likely to have relevant information. But “increased freedom” may not be one of them.
Here is more:
Kuznicki thinks the engineering mindset in political theory is an antidote to what he sees as a philosophical tradition of abstract theorizing that puts the state on a pedestal and makes it into an almost metaphysical nexus of the human condition. But as I look around, much of the vapid theorizing seems to be in favor of liberalism writ large, while the best current example of a state built on hard-nosed pragmatism is Singapore. Kuznicki himself is a representative of a currently fashionable sort of cosmopolitan libertarianism that has never existed in governmental form, and which I suspect is the least likely form of government ever to exist. What if a practical politics that took account of human frailty implied a world formed from a combination of cosmopolitan but illiberal city-states, unified but homogeneous nation-states, and sprawling empires that vacillate between centrifugal and centripetal tendencies? In fact, this is the world that has existed for most of recorded history. Perhaps the real ideological blinders are those which tell us that we have transcended this condition and can replace it with something else.
That is from William Wilson in American Affairs, hat tip goes to Garett Jones and Rogue WPA Staff. Here is Jason Kuznicki’s new book, which I have not yet seen.
What I’ve been reading
1. Daphne Hampson, Kierkegaard: Exposition and Technique. Dense but carefully argued and consistently insightful, perhaps the best introduction to its subject matter. It is especially strong on how Kierkegaard’s Lutheranism informed his critique of Hegel, his supernaturalism, and his strong opposition to complacency.
Kierkegaard also was an influence on my Stubborn Attachments, as Hampson writes: “Given that faith is to look beyond ourselves to Christ, the ‘future’ is for Lutheranism a critical category. In the thought of the 20th-century Lutheran theologian Rudolf Bultmann ‘future’ and ‘God’ become concomitant. The relation to this future, to God, takes one outside oneself, whereas to rest on my laurels (my past) is of the essence of sin. As we shall see, for Kierkegaard, relating to the idea of eternal life is existentially life-transforming. It follows that in this tradition there is little continuity of person, for one and again I must break myself open (in my self-satisfaction) as I consent to dependence on God.”
Recommended.
2. Johnny Rogan, Byrds: Requiem for the Timeless: Volume 2: The Lives of Gene Clark, Michael Clarke, Kevin Kelley, Gram Parsons, Clarence White and Skip Battin. Full of amazing and loving detail, this volume covers the less famous of the Byrds, and why their careers did not go further; whether in business or the arts, we spend too much time studying the winners. Here are my earlier remarks on Rogan’s earlier editions as an extended essay on management theory and career advice.
3. Michael D. Barr, The Ruling Elite of Singapore: Networks of Power and Influence. From 2013, but all the more relevant today. Barr’s coverage is insufficiently appreciative of good results, but nonetheless offers an invaluable “how things really work” guide to Singaporean government, most of all on where accountability lies and where it does not. There is guesswork involved, but this book offers plenty of details and analysis you won’t get elsewhere.
4. Henry A. Kissinger, A World Restored: Europe After Napoleon: The Politics of Conservatism in a Revolutionary Age. Published in 1964, before Kissinger became Kissinger, although he is a war criminal this volume shows the quality of his thought: “…an equilibrium based on considerations of power is the most difficult of all to establish, particularly in a revolutionary period following a long peace. Lulled by the memory of stability, states tend to seek security in activity and to mistake impotence for lack of provocation.” The person who recommended this volume to me told me it would explain why the internal and external requirements for foreign policy on the Continent are much more in accord than they are for either England or America. It does no such thing, so I still would like to read on that question.
Jack Schneider, Beyond Test Scores: A Better Way to Measure School Quality. Under a true value added measure, the schools in Somerville, Massachusetts turn out to be quite good, even though their raw test scores are not impressive.
David Osborne, Reinventing America’s Schools: Creating a 21st Education System, covers how charter schools are transforming the American educational landscape.
What I’ve been reading
1. David Der-Wei Wang, editor. A New Literary History of Modern China. Almost one thousand pages, and aren’t edited volumes so often poison? Still, these short, collated excerpts provide one of the most useful and readable entry points into modern Chinese intellectual history; this will be making my “year’s best” list. Every year you should be reading multiple books about China, all of you. Here is a sentence from the work, from Andrea Bachner: “In a brothel in Singapore at the beginning of the twentieth century, a quaint Chinese intellectual (reminiscent of Wang) immersed in the project of writing a new Dream of the Red Chamber in oracle bone script on turtle shells inspires an English visitor to dream of creating a novel superior to Ulysses, tattooed on the backs of coolie laborers.”
2. Richard O. Prum, The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin’s Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World — And Us. The word “forgotten” is misleading in the title, but nonetheless an excellent look at how signaling theories work when the signal is distributed across a quality that is neither useful nor especially burdensome and costly. In other words, it’s not all about the peacock’s tail. The result is aesthetic beauty, and competition across that beauty for its own sake. This book offers an excellent and clearly written treatment of the particulars of avian evolution, signaling theory, and also aesthetics, bringing together some disparate areas very effectively.
3. Invisible Planets: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese SF in Translation, edited and translated by Ken Liu. A strong collection, with two stories by Cixin Liu. Here is a new article on Chinese science fiction.
4. Thomas Hardy, Unexpected Elegies: “Poems of 1912-1913” and Other Poems About Emma. Some of Hardy’s best poetic work, it mixes “passion, memory, love, remorse, regret, self-awareness and self-flagellation…to serve a speech of intense emotional candor, all in celebration of his dead (and for many years estranged) wife, Emma,” by one account.
There is a new, expanded edition of Amartya Sen’s Collective Choice and Social Welfare, still the best place to go for his views on normative economics.
Robert Wright’s new book is Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment. I am not sure how amenable Buddhism is to bookish treatment, and furthermore the word “true” makes me nervous in this title (“useful”?), but still this book reaches a local maximum of sorts. If you want a book from a smart Westerner defending Buddhism, this is it.
Saturday assorted links
2. The RNA editing of the octopus. Recommended.
3. Cowen’s Second Law: optimal rat tickling edition.
4. Export price elasticity > tariff elasticity > exchange rate elasticity.
5. After the Storm is the best movie I’ve seen so far this year, it is a study in Japanese “complacency,” the reviews are positive but none are insightful.
6. The museum of failed innovations.
7. “Besides, he points out, Scotland is closer to Newfoundland than Hawaii is to California.“
What to watch for in 2017
1. Iran’s presidential race in May. Iran does run real elections — sort of — but will Rouhani survive? Or will the hardliners ascend again? How much is Rouhani a hardliner anyway? Stay tuned. I’ll just note a theorem in the margins here: the greater the unpredictability of the American president, the more the identities and decisions of the other world leaders matter. According to Wikipedia, the only announced reformist candidate is a blogger (not a good sign for him or them).
2. How Nigeria copes with its recession. This is the one country in sub-Saharan Africa that has the size and talent to make a significant commercial breakthrough. Now that oil prices are back up a bit, can they dismantle their counterproductive exchange and capital controls, boost FDI, and get to four to six percent growth? Or will they wallow in the range of one to two percent, which hardly means anything in light of Nigeria’s rising population?
3. Whether the Democratic Republic of the Congo remains stable. Joseph Kabila is staying past the end of his second presidential term. Will this lead to renewed instability and conflict, beyond what is already the case? “Africa’s World War” ended in 2003, not long ago, and it is not impossible to imagine it resuming.
4. African fertility rates. They’re high. In most other parts of the world, including Latin America and the Middle East, fertility has fallen much faster than most commentators had expected. That is not yet the case for Africa, but will it be?
5. Modi’s India and where it it headed: Maybe the demonetisation was an unforced error, but it seems increasingly likely it was part of a broader strategy to push India into a semi-cashless, biometrically marked, income tax-paying society. I’ll be curious to see how that goes.
6. Economic growth in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Pakistan grew 4.7 percent last year and Bangladesh has averaged about six percent for the last decade. Is all that (relative) good news going to continue? If so, the world will be in much better shape than otherwise.
7. Will Xi Jinping overturn Chinese political conventions? His term is supposed to end in 2022, but for a while he has been sending signals he might try to stay on as leader for much longer. That could bring a new round of political instability to the Middle Kingdom. Or a new round of stability. Depending how you look at it.
8. Chinese capital flight and the currency peg. This one seems to be heating to a boil. Capital flight continues to rise, using every technique known to mankind including Bitcoin and e-purchases of Singaporean gambling tokens. The government says that the sporadic reports of USD trades at 7-1 are nonsense, so they must be right. When will it snap? And when it does, will it be a non-event or a big deal?
9. American institutions: Will the United States Congress and courts continue to secure some version of rule of law in this country? And will we agree on what that means?
10. What is the Latin American middle class good for? Many Latin economies now have built a reasonably-sized middle class, but commodity prices are not in general favoring those economies. Will those middle classes push their countries into better policies and educational systems? Slowly but surely, I believe the answer is yes.
There is a chance the French or German elections make this list, but right now the best forecasts are for “business as usual” in both cases. Brexit will continue to torture us with its drawn-out agony. And remember — your emotional guide as to what is an important issue often reflects your own selfish concerns about the status of you and your preferred groups. Do keep that in mind throughout this year.
If you’re looking for a few sleeper issues, I’ll cite Russia-Israel tensions over control of Middle Eastern airspace, economic and institutional recovery in Ukraine combined with sabotage potential from you-know-where, the political economy and geopolitics of aging in Japan, the rise of a Trump-like populist in Mexico, and the potential failure of the Saudi reform process as a few more to keep your eye on. Climate change and the destroyed parts of the Middle East bear watching too, along with ongoing collapse in Yemen, for water supplies too.
Tuesday assorted links
1. Do real interest rates encourage higher savings?
2. Are you Howard Roark? The libertarian architect.
3. A problem for industrial policy: export specialization is not as stable as you think.
4. Ted Gioia’s 100 best albums of 2016, always an event. All kinds of music.
5. An international coastal city right next to Singapore. And how pangolins drink.
6. Japan’s original industrialization was actually quite resource-intensive.
Monday assorted links
Saturday assorted links
4. Is the House really on the line?
5. Wallonia blocks EU-Canada trade deal.
6. Sky Ladder is a splendid documentary, Netflix. It’s the story of Cai Guo-qiang, probably the world’s greatest active artist, and his quest to produce a truly amazing artistic display for his 100-year-old grandmother before she passes away. it is also one of the best movies about contemporary China, or for that matter art and politics.
Nations can be start-ups, too
That is my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt:
The virtues of business startups have led to many a success story. These enterprises start with clean slates. They embody the focused and often idiosyncratic visions of their founders. The successful ones grow faster than their competitors. Even after they become larger and more bureaucratic, these companies often retain some of the creative spirit of their startup origins.
It is less commonly recognized that some nations, including many of the post-World War II economic miracles, had features of startups. For instance, Singapore started as an independent country in 1965, after it was essentially kicked out of Malaysia and suddenly had to fend for itself. Lee Kuan Yew was the country’s first leader, and he embodied many features of the founder-chief executive: setting the vision and ethos, assuming responsibility for other personnel, influencing the early product lines in manufacturing and serving as a chairman-of-the-board figure in his later years.
Other start-ups nations have been UAE, Israel, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cayman Islands, Estonia, South Korea, and of course way back when the United States. You will note that many of these examples are imperfectly democratic in their early years, and they do not in every case grow out of it. And this:
The world today seems to have lower potential for startup nations. This is in part because international relations are more peaceful and also because most colonial relationships have receded into the more distant past. Those are both positive developments, but the corresponding downside is not always recognized, namely fewer chances for reshuffling the pieces.
This is the close:
To paraphrase John Cleese from Monty Python, the startup nation concept isn’t dead, it’s just resting. Whether in business or in politics, the compelling logic of the startup just isn’t going away.
The best chances for future start-ups may be in Africa, around the borders of Russia, and perhaps someday (not now) Kurdistan. Do read the whole thing.
How to Bring Prosperity to Iran
I was pleased to be one of a group of economists asked to publish a letter to Iran in the New Year’s issue of Tejarat-e Farda, an Iranian business weekly. The issue features messages from economists around the word.
Here is my letter:
Happy Nowruz! I celebrate today not only a New Year but what I hope will be a new beginning. Political differences have cut Iran, long a center of world trade and commerce, from the world economy. As a result, the Iranian economy has performed for a generation or more well below its potential. But Iran has great national resources and could experience an explosion of prosperity if it adopts the right institutions.
Turkey and Iran once had similar standards of living but GDP per capita today is more than twice as high in Turkey as in Iran. On the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index, Turkey is not a world leader, it ranks just 55th in the world (Singapore ranks 1st), but Iran ranks only 118th out of 189 countries.
Iran, however, is moving in the right direction. Privatization of state enterprises, when combined with competitive and open markets, will improve efficiency and innovation. Greater experience with private markets and commercial law also hold the promise of building a more secure foundation for property rights, especially for foreign investors. With the right business climate, billions of dollars could flow to Iran including many billions from successful Iranians who live in the United States and around the world.
The United Arab Emirates provides an interesting model. The UAE has the best business climate in the region and its reputation for security of property has allowed the UAE to attract investment from all over the world including at least $200 billion from investors of Iranian heritage. The government of the UAE takes pride in its business climate and they have used international benchmarks to attract investment and measure their own achievements. It’s remarkable that in their vision document the UAE explicitly aims to be the number one ranked country on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index by 2021. Iran could similarly set goals and mark achievements using international benchmarks such as the Ease of Doing Business Index, the Global Competitiveness Index and the Transparency Index.
The size of the Iranian market makes it attractive to foreign investors as does the sophistication of the Iranian consumer. Iran has a great history of investment in education and its population is among the best educated in the region. Iran is well poised to succeed in information technology and internet startups especially if it offers guarantees and protections for free movement of information.
Iranians have a long history of entrepreneurship and trade, they are among the best educated people in the region, and there is a large Iranian community in the world who would like to invest in their homeland. Iran has strong foundations and with the right institutions it could achieve a prosperity takeoff that would be welcomed by Iranians as well as by the many people around the world who wish the best for the Iranian people in the community of nations.