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.
The contributions of Rene Girard
Carl L asks: Address the scapegoating theory of René Girard in general, and its possible application to economics. Peter Thiel has repeatedly cited Girard as an important influence and has even said his theory was partly the reason he invested in Facebook.
From my idiosyncratic point of view, here are a few of Girard’s major contributions, noting that I am putting them into “stupid simple” language, rather than trying to communicate his nuances:
1. His understanding of Christianity as fundamentally and radically different from earlier religions, as it exalts the individual victim rather than the conqueror. Here is one point from a summarizer: “Christianity is the revelation (the unveiling) of what the myths want to veil; it is the deconstruction of the mono-myth, not a reiteration of it—which is exactly why so many within academe want to domesticate and de-fang it.”
2. Seeing violence as a chronic problem of human societies, rather than as the result of a bug in rational choice or the collapse into a bad game-theoretic solution.
3. Understanding the import of “mimetic desire,” namely the desire to copy others, and also why this is not always an entirely peaceful process, due to scarcity. The tech world, by the way, at least pretends to have found a solution to this in its extreme scalability of product; we’ll see how that pans out.
4. A theory of mediated and triangulated desire, not yet absorbed by behavioral economics, and partly summarized here: “Whereas external mediation does not lead to rivalries, internal mediation does lead to rivalries. But, metaphysical desire leads a person not just to rivalry with her mediator; actually, it leads to total obsession with and resentment of the mediator. For, the mediator becomes the main obstacle in the satisfaction of the person’s metaphysical desire. Inasmuch as the person desires to be his mediator, such desire will never be satisfied. For nobody can be someone else. Eventually, the person developing a metaphysical desire comes to appreciate that the main obstacle to be the mediator is the mediator himself.”
5. First and foremost approaching societies from an anthropological point of view, prior to the economic method.
6. Understanding various social situations in terms of the need of finding a scapegoat to sacrifice, if not violently with some kind of resolution and catharsis. These days one of those victims would be the big tech companies, as it is remarkable how many weakly-argued critiques of them make the paper every day. You’ll understand these writings through the eyes of Girard, not economic theory. Girard is also one of the best lenses for understanding the writings of bad and manipulative pundits.
7. Girard is of great use for understanding literature. Try any Shakespearean play with “doubles,” Merchant of Venice, Thomas Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge (an all-time favorite), or Coetzee’s Disgrace, all Girardian to the core and very much illuminated by familiarity with his key ideas. These are perhaps his most underrated contributions. Shakespeare, by the way, is Girard’s most important precursor, also throw in the New Testament, Hobbes, Tocqueville, and maybe Montaigne.
What should you read by him?: Violence and the Sacred, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, Theatre of Envy.
Where is Girard weakest: His theory of language, his overemphasis on the destructive nature of mimesis, excess claims to have discovered universal mechanisms, just making lots of stuff up, and not knowing enough economics or empirical anthropology.
How important is he?: If you had to pick twenty thinkers from the latter half of the 20th century, he is definitely one of them. By the way, Foucault and Baudrillard might be the other French writers on that list.
Saturday assorted links
1. It seems the critics of Uber are badly wrong on this one.
2. Longevity is less genetically determined than many of us had thought.
3. Megan McArdle’s first WaPo column, on businesses as people, Delta and the NRA.
And you thought crypto-assets were strange…
A candidate in the race for a South Texas state House seat has reportedly received $87,500 in campaign donations — more than half of which is made up of deer semen.
The Dallas News reported Thursday that Ana Lisa Garza, a district court judge running a primary challenge against eight-term Democrat Ryan Guillen, has received $51,000 in in-kind donations to her campaign, listed as individual donations of frozen deer semen straws.
The containers are reportedly a common way for deer breeders in the state to donate to political campaigns. Garza’s campaign has valued the straws at $1,000 each.
Fred Gonzalez, a Texas deer breeder who serves as treasurer of the Texas Deer Association, told the Dallas News that the group’s political action committee has received more than $975,000 in deer semen donations since 2006, and has given more than $885,000 in the same period of time.
“Semen is a very common way for us to donate,” Gonzalez told the paper. “One collection on a buck could lead to 60 straws sometimes. If you have a desirable animal, it’s a way to bring value without breaking the bank.”
Straws from bucks named Bandit, Sweet Dreams and Gladiator Sunset were among the donations listed.
Here is the story, via Patrick and also Peter.
The Push
The Push on Netflix is a deeply disturbing replication of the Milgram Experiment. The question it asks is whether someone can quickly be convinced to commit a murder? Spoiler alert: yes. British mentalist Derren Brown and a cast of confederates create an evil version of the Truman Show. By taking an individual from one seemingly minor moral deviation–labeling meat canapes as vegetarian–to another, to another, Brown puts people in a situation where by the end of one hour they are so emotionally disoriented and stressed that they will try to commit a murder to relieve their tension.
If you had asked me yesterday whether I thought it would be ok to run the Milgram experiment again, I would have said yes, as science. Today, I am not sure. What Brown does to these people for our entertainment (?) is disgusting. I feel complicit in having watched. Yes, I know, I am writing about it. I’m not sure what to make of that either.
As far as I can tell, the experiment is real. I’d be happier if it were fake but the results are consistent with previous Milgram replications. But if it is real did we then watch attempted murder? I am reminded of Leo Katz’s, Bad Acts and Guilty Minds. If a man fires a gun aiming to kill but the gun is defective is it attempted murder? Surely, yes. If thinking it a deadly poison a man adulterates a drink with sugar is it attempted murder? What if a sincere believer in voodoo tries to kill by sticking pins in a doll?
Aside from the legal issues, what Brown does to the participants is awful. How will they live the rest of their lives? Jordan Peterson says that you cannot be a good person until you know how much evil you contain within you. Well the people Brown experiments on know the evil that they contain but will they become better people? Or will they break? Brown doesn’t seem to care.
In some sense, the subjects have consented. Months earlier they applied to be on a show but they were told that they had been rejected. Perhaps you think the participants figured it out. You will have to judge for yourself but it all happens so quickly that I don’t think that is plausible. Moreover, if you figured it out wouldn’t you want to be the hero rather than the prison guard directing the Jews to the ovens?
Does The Push have any socially redeeming value? I hope so. Phillip Zimbardo of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment was so upset by his research that he started the Heroic Imagination Project, (I wrote about it here). The Heroic Imagination Project attempts to turn the issue around by asking what helps people to resist authority? And how can we train people under stress to draw on their heroic reserves? Netflix has shown us that the Heroic Imagination Project is sorely needed. Maybe next time Netflix can devote some of their considerable resources to helping us resist the push.
Is the case for free trade still valid in a world of welfare states?
That is a request from dearieme, and the answer is yes, the case for free trade is still valid.
First, some welfare states, such as the United States and Denmark, are quite compatible with full employment, or could be compatible with full employment if say monetary policy were better. The welfare state may still, through say tax rate effects, keep some family second earners out of the work force. That is likely inefficient, but it doesn’t boost the case for protectionism.
Second, the actual second best problem comes when a welfare state (especially a poorly designed one, and there are some of those) interacts with job churn. Given that some people are out of work, the welfare state may limit their incentive for job search, or the associated taxes and regulations may limit job creation on the employer side. So some workers will lose their jobs due to foreign competition, and find reemployment difficult or not sufficiently desirable relative to the dole.
Overall, though, a lot of those jobs were going to disappear anyway, because of either automation or simply shifts in consumer demand. In that sense free trade is simply the “messenger,” rather than a unique villain. Are jobs more precarious in larger trade zones? I can’t recall seeing a protectionist make that case, instead they simply rely on the superficial observation of the first-order, visible effect, namely that some jobs have gone away for trade-related reasons. The possibility of importing intermediate goods makes many jobs more stable, as do exports. There is no a priori reason to expect free trade to under-perform in this regard.
Free trade still gives an economy more wealth for dealing with transition problems, and it gives workers a better chance of finding a new job somewhere else. To be sure, not all classes or regions of workers will benefit from this dynamism at any point in time. But a welfare state will help protect those workers who do not.
For all of those reasons, the case for free trade is robust to having welfare states.
Alternatively, you might try a “race to the bottom” argument for thinking that free trade and welfare states may interact in counterproductive ways. Let’s say that free trade causes governments to compete to lure or keep business activity. That tends to encourage a social welfare state funded through consumption taxes (not corporate taxes), accompanied by a minimum of regulation. That sounds like an OK enough race to me. I’m not even sure there is a race to the bottom on the regulatory side, but at the very least there are incentives for regulation not to exceed a manageable level, again all to the better.
Markets in everything
“They do what they want,” she says. “After the earthquake you would see [foreign workers] asking to have sex in exchange for supplies. I never did it, but I saw some people who did.”
A UN report, published in May 2015, found that members of its peacekeeping mission in Haiti traded sex for aid with more than 225 women between 2008 and 2014.
Request for requests
What would you like to hear about these days? I make no promises, but will earnestly consider whatever you ask for.
Friday assorted links
That was then, this is now
From the (early) MR archives
Bush to drop most steel tariffs, Tyler Cowen, on December 1, 2003 at 7:45 am
Bush decided in March 2002 to impose tariffs of 8 to 30 percent on most steel imports from Europe, Asia and South America for three years. Officials acknowledged at the time that the decision was heavily influenced by the desire to help the Rust Belt states, but the departure from Bush’s free-trade principles drew fierce criticism from his conservative supporters. After a blast of international opposition, the administration began approving exemptions.
The WTO’s ruling against the tariffs was finalized three weeks ago, clearing the way for the retaliatory levies, and Bush’s economic team concluded unanimously that the tariffs should be scrapped. The source involved in the negotiations said the consensus in the White House was that “keeping the tariffs in place would cause more economic disruption and pain for the broader economy than repealing them would for the steel industry.”
Here is the full story. The formal decision is expected to be announced later this week. This is the first piece of economic policy good news in some time, but it is sad that it required a WTO ruling and threats of European retaliation to come about.”
I recall visiting the White House with Vernon Smith around this time. Smith told Bush that he had done the wrong thing with the steel tariffs, and Bush simply snapped back: “You’re the economist…leave the politics to me!” I wonder how Trump put it to his advisors…
Addendum: Here is Bob Crandall criticizing Reagan steel protectionism from the 1980s. Here is a 2003 retrospective analysis of the Bush steel tariffs.
South Africa update
The National Assembly on Tuesday set in motion a process to amend the Constitution so as to allow for the expropriation of land without compensation.
The motion, brought by the EFF leader Julius Malema, was adopted with a vote of 241 in support, and 83 against.
The only parties who did not support the motion were the DA, Freedom Front Plus, Cope and the ACDP.
The matter will now be referred to the Constitutional Review Committee which must report back to Parliament by August 30.
That is from a South African website, and the story really does seem to be true. Yet reputable Western outlets do not seem to have much interest in reporting on this, except for this piece on Quartz.
There has been more coverage of Cape Town possibly running out of water. I do understand that foreign troubles often look worse from a distance, but still in an era when emerging economies have been booming, including in most of Africa, it is hard not to be put off by these developments. I am not sure how to interpret the data quality issues, but it is not obvious that the median wage has increased since the fall of apartheid.
San Francisco dining bleg
Where should one eat there now? And I don’t mean the fancy/famous places. Either lunch or dinner.
Thursday assorted links
No, American fascism can’t happen here
Politico is running an excerpt from my essay in the new Cass Sunstein book. Here is one opening bit:
My argument is pretty simple: American fascism cannot happen anymore because the American government is so large and unwieldy. It is simply too hard for the fascists, or for that matter other radical groups, to seize control of. No matter who is elected, the fascists cannot control the bureaucracy, they cannot control all the branches of American government, they cannot control the judiciary, they cannot control semi-independent institutions such as the Federal Reserve, and they cannot control what is sometimes called “the deep state.” The net result is they simply can’t control enough of the modern state to steer it in a fascist direction.
…Surely it ought to give us pause that the major instances of Western fascism came right after a time when government was relatively small, and not too long after the heyday of classical liberalism in Europe, namely the late 19th century. No, I am not blaming classical liberalism for Nazism, but it is simply a fact that it is easier to take over a smaller and simpler state than it is to commandeer one of today’s sprawling bureaucracies.
…the greater focus of the night watchman state, for all its virtues, is part of the reason why it is easy to take over. There is a clearly defined center of power and a clearly defined set of lines of authority; furthermore, the main activity of the state is to enforce property rights through violence or the threat of violence. That means such a state will predominantly comprise policemen, soldiers, possibly border authorities, Coast Guard employees and others in related support services. The culture and ethos of such a state is likely to be relatively masculine and also relatively martial and tolerant of a certain amount of risk, and indeed violence. The state will be full of people who are used to the idea of applying force to achieve social ends, even if, under night watchman assumptions, those deployments of force are for the most part justified.
Do read the whole thing, the article has points of interest, and the essay in the book even more.
Are NBA players friendlier with each other these days?
From one recent ESPN report:
And Bird would always say, “Did Laimbeer make it? [the All-Star game]” And I would say, yes or no, and if it was no, he’d be like “Oh, good. Cause then when I get on the bus and he says, ‘Hi, Larry’ I don’t have to say, “F— you, Bill.” So we can bleep that out, OK? But that’s the old days.
Windhorst: I can actually hear Larry saying that.
MacMullan: That’s the old days. But the new days, these guys are all friends. I’m just amazed at the camaraderie between teams.
Today, ESPN presents “the three unwritten rules for NBA trash talking,” the first being “Don’t make it personal.” The second is “Be quiet on the bench.” Where’s the trash?