Results for “age of em” 16714 found
“A good start…”
Mike Irvine is set to make a splash in the dry world of academe. The University of Victoria student is getting ready to defend his masters thesis in education from below the surface of the Salish Sea off the coast of British Columbia.
And lest you think he’s not taking his thesis defense seriously, he’ll be wearing a pinstripe suit over his wet suit.
…Irvine’s thesis, “Underwater web cameras as a tool to engage students in the exploration and discovery of ocean literacy,” will be streamed live on YouTube as well.
His thesis defense will take about 15 minutes and, following his presentation, he’ll face two rounds of questions from his advisors. He expects to be underwater for about an hour.
The link is here, with illustrative videos, via Jodi Ettenberg.
Networks and the Macroeconomy
That is the next NBER macro session, the authors are Acemoglu, Akcigit, and Kerr, the pdf is here, and here is the abstract:
The propagation of macroeconomic shocks through input-output and geographic networks can be a powerful driver of macroeconomic fluctuations. We first exposit that in the presence of Cobb-Douglas production functions and consumer preferences, there is a specific pattern of economic transmission whereby demand-side shocks propagate upstream (to input supplying industries) and supply-side shocks propagate downstream (to customer industries) and that there is a tight relationship between the direct impact of a shock and the magnitudes of the downstream and the upstream indirect effects. We then investigate the short-run propagation of four different types of industry-level shocks: two demand-side ones (the exogenous component of the variation in industry imports from China and changes in federal spending) and two supply-side ones (TFP shocks and variation in knowledge/ideas coming from foreign patenting). In each case, we find substantial propagation of these shocks through the input-output network, with a pattern broadly consistent with theory. Quantitatively, the network-based propagation is larger than the direct effects of the shocks, sometimes by severalfold. We also show quantitatively large effects from the geographic network, capturing the fact that the local propagation of a shock to an industry will fall more heavily on other industries that tend to collocate with it across local markets. Our results suggest that the transmission of various different types of shocks through economic networks and industry interlinkages could have first-order implications for the macroeconomy.
The (tight money) culture that is Dutch
Just when it seemed the image of bankers couldn’t get any more battered or bizarre, the Dutch central bank has fired a 46-year-old female employee claimed to have been working after hours as a highly paid prostitute – specialising in sadomasochism.
The Dutch central bank forbids “indecent behavior,” she had failed to register with the local chamber of commerce or pay appropriate taxes, and she was in violation of zoning laws.
There is more at the link.
Is Capitalism Making Us Stupid?
Joseph Heath’s Enlightenment 2.0 is one of the best books I have read in years. I offer an extensive review at the New Rambler. Here’s the opening:
Joseph Heath is a Canadian philosopher who is unusually conversant with economics and also unusually capable of writing sparkling prose for a popular audience. His earlier book Economics Without Illusions was split into 6 right-wing fallacies and 6 left-wing fallacies, and he did a commendable job on both sides. Heath has his own left-liberal point of view: the subtitle of Economics Without Illusions was Debunking the Myths of Modern Capitalism and in the original Canadian version, the book was subtitled Economics For People Who Hate Capitalism. However, I like capitalism and I still enjoyed it! Enlightenment 2.0 is Heath’s foray into political philosophy. Drawing on psychology, economics and political science, Enlightenment 2.0 is a brilliant defense of reason, an important call for a more rational politics, and a great read.
Heath is worried that the foundations of liberal society are being eroded by the cultural denigration of reason combined with ruthlessly competitive economic and political forces that exploit the biases and hooks of our unreasoning mind.
Although I admire Enlightenment 2.0, I answer the question of the post differently than does Heath and my review contains plenty of critical commentary. Ayn Rand, Idiocracy, mind viruses and other interesting characters make an appearance. Read the whole thing.
Wednesday assorted links
1. Hedonic adaptations to housing improvements. And six rules for frugal dining.
2. Which NBA city has the greatest number of “fair weather ” fans? (hint: Toronto)
3. Do Mind-Set interventions work on students?
4. Are you smarter than a Singaporean fourteen-year-old?
Is the Income Tax Legal? Voluntary?
Just in case you are tempted to go all Wesley Snipes and refuse to pay your taxes on “constitutional” grounds, the income tax is legal and mandatory. Sorry.
Jonathan Siegel, professor of law at GWU has carefully examined all the primary tax protester arguments. All are wrong. Some are quite interesting
Some tax protestors claim that [the 16th] amendment is not really part of the Constitution — it was never ratified! Therefore, they say, the income tax is unconstitutional. This argument was popularized by Bill Benson in a book called “The Law That Never Was.”
Surprisingly enough, this argument has a little something to it. When the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified by state legislatures in the early twentieth century, the versions that some states voted on contained minor textual errors. Some of them neglected to capitalize the word “States,” one had “income” in place of “incomes,” one said “remuneration” instead of “enumeration,” one said “levy” instead of “lay,” and so on.
If the states didn’t all vote on the same, identical text for the Sixteenth Amendment, can the amendment really be considered ratified? When Congress makes a law, the House and the Senate must vote on the same text. Similarly, if the states didn’t vote on the right text, one could argue that they didn’t ratify the amendment. No Sixteenth Amendment, no income tax, the argument goes.
However, it seems that the amendment really was ratified. The alleged defects in the ratification process were considered at the time of ratification in 1913. The Solicitor of the Department of State convincingly explained why the minor textual variations in the versions the states voted on should be disregarded.
First, it seems that the state legislatures intended to ratify the amendment as proposed by Congress. They understood themselves to be voting to approve the proposed Sixteenth Amendment. The text set forth in their instruments of ratification was for recitation purposes only. The errors in the text were not proposals to change the text being ratified; they were just inadvertent errors that do not detract from the intention of the state legislatures to ratify the amendment as proposed.
Benson denies this. He claims that states deliberately altered the text of the proposed amendment. But the evidence just isn’t there. In one of his court filings, Benson singles out Oklahoma as a particularly clear case. He says the facts “unequivocally show that Oklahoma intentionally amended what the United States Congress had proposed” (see page 2 of Benson’s filing). But looking at Benson’s own book (pp. 61-67), one can see that the Oklahoma legislature adopted what it called “A resolution ratifying an amendment proposed by the sixty-first Congress of the United States” (emphasis added). This resolution then begins its ratification by reciting that “Whereas . . . Congress . . . on Monday the fifteenth day of March, one thousand nine hundred and nine, by joint resolution proposed an amendment to the constitution of the United States, in words and figures as follows:” Then, it’s true, the resolution misstates the text of the amendment (and pretty badly too). But it sure looks as though the Oklahoma legislatorsthought they were ratifying the amendment that Congress had proposed on the specified date and just misstated it. So even in a case that Benson himself singles out, it seems quite clear that the state legislature thought it was ratifying the Sixteenth Amendment, not proposing to change it.
…For all these reasons, it seems clear that the Sixteenth Amendment really is part of the Constitution.
Certainly that has been the uniform holding of the courts in cases in which this argument has been raised. For some representative cases, see United States v. Benson, 941 F.2d 598 (7th Cir. 1991) (rejecting these arguments in a criminal case brought against the author of the “Law that Never Was” book); United States v. Foster, 789 F.2d 457 (7th Cir. 1986); Cook v. Spillman, 806 F.2d 948 (9th Cir. 1986) (calling the argument that the Sixteenth Amendment was never ratified “frivolous” and imposing sanctions of $1,500 on the party making it); United States v. House, 617 F.Supp. 237, 238-39 (W.D. Mich.1985).
So while this argument is not as utterly absurd as most tax protestor arguments, one can be confident that it would not succeed in any actual court proceeding.
How meritocratic is meritocracy?
There is some new research by Castilla and Bernard:
In this article, we develop and empirically test the theoretical argument that when an organizational culture promotes meritocracy (compared with when it does not), managers in that organization may ironically show greater bias in favor of men over equally performing women in translating employee performance evaluations into rewards and other key career outcomes; we call this the “paradox of meritocracy.” To assess this effect, we conducted three experiments with a total of 445 participants with managerial experience who were asked to make bonus, promotion, and termination recommendations for several employee profiles. We manipulated both the gender of the employees being evaluated and whether the company’s core values emphasized meritocracy in evaluations and compensation. The main finding is consistent across the three studies: when an organization is explicitly presented as meritocratic, individuals in managerial positions favor a male employee over an equally qualified female employee by awarding him a larger monetary reward. This finding demonstrates that the pursuit of meritocracy at the workplace may be more difficult than it first appears and that there may be unrecognized risks behind certain organizational efforts used to reward merit. We discuss possible underlying mechanisms leading to the paradox of meritocracy effect as well as the scope conditions under which we expect the effect to occur.
The link is here, and for the pointer I thank Samarth Bhaskar.
Tuesday assorted links
1. How much will the demand for dilithium crystals go up? And is there a free lunch after all? (Isn’t the universe as a whole a large free lunch?) Possibly speculative.
2. The new Jeff Sachs paper on robots. And Moore’s Law at fifty. Are routine jobs disappearing? (yes)
3. If a person buys insurance against small losses, is there a way to make lemonade from that lemon?
4. How universal is the left-right political spectrum?
5. New job opportunity: economist at LinkedIn.
6. The case for composting. Dementia and sexual consent.
Is GE getting out of commercial credit a sign of triumph for Dodd-Frank?
Rortybomb argued yes, Paul Krugman too, but I don’t see it. A lot of the interest in the GE loan portfolio is coming from private equity groups such as Blackstone. Is that asset redistribution a move toward greater safety for the system? Maybe so, but it also might just be pushing the risk around into different corners, and possibly less transparent corners at that. After all, the Coase theorem suggests the loans will go where they have the highest private value, and if you favor Dodd-Frank in the first place you ought to worry some of that private value may be an arbitrage against bailout options and ultimately the taxpayer.
In the longer run banks might pick up more of this business, in part because they can raise funds through deposits, at basically zero pecuniary cost. Is centralizing more lending in the TBTF parts of our banking system an improvement, or not? Again, you can argue this one either way.
And is this good or bad news?:
…the company [GE] has embarked on a massive recruitment drive to hire risk managers and financial modelling experts to help it prepare for annual stress tests by the Federal Reserve. (same FT link as above)
In a nutshell, not every attempt to raise the cost of non-bank commercial credit is a favorable development.
I do get that GE received guarantees/subsidies during the financial crisis, but so did a lot of other institutions. I don’t see that anyone making the “GE’s new policy is a triumph for Dodd-Frank” argument is stating the comparative analysis correctly, much less doing that analysis and reaching a defensible conclusion.
How to dine well in Yucatan and Quintana Roo
Go to the mercado in Valladolid, right off the main square, and sample as many dishes as possible. Don’t hesitate to use the spicy black sauce. That is the single best introduction to Yucatan cuisine I know of.
Mérida offers a more urbanized variant, with influences from Cuba (the tortas) and Lebanon (kibi, which is like kibbeh). The town has many bad restaurants, go eat at Punto y Coma, a loncheria inside one of the markets, taxi drivers seem to know where it is. Ask for their specialties, and don’t miss Sopa de Lima.
In Cancún, get yourself to El Centro, away from the tourist hotels. If you are stuck on the strip, Tempo offers ten courses for less than $50, the founder chef is from San Sebastian and I would put the quality at that of a Michelin two-star. Otherwise look for small places selling fish tacos.
El cenote Samula was created by the meteor which did in the dinosaurs, today you can swim there. The open air restaurants to its side were the best meal so far.
Voice and Exit Festival
I will be speaking at the Voice and Exit Festival in Austin, Texas, June 20-21. Voice and Exit is like a TED conference on steroids, an edgier, more radical TED. It looks like a lot of fun. Hope to see you there.
Here is a bit from V&A:
We assemble those who ask: What are the systems and ways of life that are holding us back? What can we create to make those old ways obsolete? What innovations enable us to find wellbeing, life meaning and stronger connection to others? How can we live intentionally today so as to create that better future? Voice & Exit is an environment of exploration where we “criticize by creating” a better world.
One reason why China has done as well as it has
Consider China, which has extremely rapid productivity growth, and hence very rapid nominal wage growth, despite an inflation rate that’s fairly similar to the US. Because the trend growth in nominal wages is so high in China, you’d expect downward wage inflexibility to be much less of a problem in China than in the US. I frequently argue that NGDP growth is often the best proxy for the welfare costs and benefits of inflation, better than inflation itself. This is one more such example, as NGDP growth is strongly correlated with productivity growth plus inflation.
That is from Scott Sumner, the rest of the post is interesting too,mostly about stickiness. That is one reason why the Chinese (but not everyone) can “wait out” recessionary pressures with fiscal policy. By the time the fiscal policy runs out, the underlying rate of productivity growth has helped solve the wage stickiness problem, and time has validated the demands of at least some of those stubborn workers.
Is happiness inequality up or down?
Steven Quartz writes:
…our current Gilded Age has been greeted with relative complacency. Despite soaring inequality, worsened by the Great Recession, and recent grumbling about the 1 percent, Americans remain fairly happy. All of the wage gains since the downturn ended in 2009 have essentially gone to the top 1 percent, yet the proportion of Americans who say they are “thriving” has actually increased. So-called happiness inequality — the proportion of Americans who are either especially miserable or especially joyful — hit a 40-year low in 2010 by some measures. Men have historically been less happy than women, but that gap has disappeared. Whites have historically been happier than nonwhites, but that gap has narrowed, too.
In fact, American happiness has not only stayed steady, but converged, since wages began stagnating in the mid-1970s. This is puzzling. It does not conform with economic theories that compare happiness to envy, and emphasize the impact of relative income for happiness — how we compare with the Joneses.
Here is part of the answer, consistent with what I argued in my book What Price Fame?:
…social status, which was once hierarchical and zero-sum, has become more fragmented, pluralistic and subjective. The relationship between relative income and relative status, which used to be straightforward, has gotten much more complex.
…A new generation of ethnographers has discovered an explosion of consumer lifestyles and product diversification in recent decades. From evangelical Christian Harley-Davidson owners, who huddle together around a motorcycle’s radio listening to a service on Sunday mornings, to lifestyles organized around musical tastes, from the solidarity of punk rockers to yoga gatherings, from meditation retreats to book clubs, we use products to create and experience community. These communities often represent a consumer micro-culture, a “brand community,” or tribe, with its own values and norms about status.
The article is very interesting throughout, hat tip goes to Claire Morgan.
Note that the closing bit of this piece is…this: “Money may not buy happiness in the long run, but consumer choice has gone a long way in keeping most Americans reasonably content, even if they shouldn’t be.”
Sunday assorted links
1. How to grow your own furniture.
2. Paul Krugman on Apple Watch.
3. The growing influence of Raj Chetty.
4. Photographing all 947 towns in Iowa.
5. Profile of David Brooks and his new, forthcoming book. Profile of Charles Lloyd.
6. Hidden agendas in Yemen, a good piece by Graham Fuller, recommended.
Larry Kramer’s *The American People*
This sprawling comic novel cum history is likely to go down as one of the books of the year. I thought Lawrence D. Mass’s review was excellent, here is one excerpt:
Conversely, is The American People the War and Peace or Gone With The Wind of LGBT history? The American People is so many disparate things that comparisons will inevitably fall short. It’s a Swiftian journey through an America we never knew; a Voltairean satire of American life and ways; a literary offspring of Gore Vidal’s Lincoln and Myra Brenckenridge; a pornographic American history through the eyes of a Henry Miller; a Robin Cook medical mystery. It’s a Sinclairean expose of American industrial and corporate skulduggery, and otherwise breathtakingly testimonial to the art of muckraking. It’s a treasure trove of historical findings, especially of the history of sex in America — of prostitution, communal living, of STD ‘s, of medicine and infectious diseases, of sanitation and health care, of medical and historical institutions, research, opinion, publications, figureheads and testimony. It’s an ultimate coming together (pun intended) of the personal with the political. And it’s the grandest telling yet of Kramer’s own story.
But as you can see from the above description, a significant chunk of readers will reject the book’s premise, language, and topics altogether. I think it is very, very good, you can order it here.