Results for “food” 2044 found
Me on China
There is more to talk about than just food:
The trade effects of a revaluation of the yuan are unlikely to be
large, in part because many Chinese exporters specialize in assembly.
China sends out money buying components like semiconductors and turns
them into finished goods, thereby running a trade deficit with East
Asia. A new and higher value for the yuan would largely be a wash for
these activities. With a stronger currency, China would have a harder
time selling its electronic goods, but this would be offset by its
greater purchasing power over the semiconductors. It would not do much
damage to the Chinese competitive position.The Chinese keep the yuan low, relative to the dollar, by buying up United States Treasury
securities; as of early 2006, the Chinese central bank held up to $470
billion in Treasury securities. This huge accumulation of relatively
low-yielding assets is the investment strategy of risk-averse
bureaucrats, but it may bring longer-term benefits. Those assets can
someday be sold or otherwise transferred to underdiversified Chinese
financial institutions. The accumulation gives the Chinese a stake in
American prosperity and signals that the Chinese are committed to
long-term participation in the global economy. On the American side,
the Treasury market is more liquid and the budget deficit can be
financed at lower cost.
Here is the full argument.
Ethnic goes Exurban
Here is my article from today’s Washington Post, on the history and development of ethnic dining in the DC area. Excerpt:
This new mobility is weakening the whole notion of the ethnic
neighborhood. Forget the old Chinatown paradigm: Diffusion is the new
model. As a result, ethnic restaurants are more like scattered
outposts, drawing from a wide radius. As [Victor] Serrano points out, "Our
competition is not right next door. We compete with . . . restaurants
five or 10 miles away."…Korean food…remains largely the province of Korean patrons. Most Westerners don’t go beyond bul gogi (broiled beef) or perhaps bibim bap
(rice bowl with egg and vegetables). The cuisine tastes harsh to the
uninitiated, with its abundant garlic and unusual seafood delicacies.
This also explains why Korean restaurants remain so tightly clustered
near Korean communities (most of the best are in Annandale) and why
just about every Korean restaurant is good. Unlike Chinese restaurants,
there is little danger of Koreans taking the Americanized
beef-with-broccoli route.
Herndon, western Fairfax, and Chantilly have never been better for food. Adams-Morgan, Dupont Circle, and Georgetown are not quite deserts, but I can’t imagine having to eat there all the time.
Envy pollution
Greg Mankiw considers Brad DeLong’s view that the presence of the rich makes the poor worse off. Jane Galt discusses Cindy Crawford. I will add the following:
1. Often the rich make us feel we are worse off when we fill out questionnaires, but the quality of experienced life doesn’t go down much from their existence.
2. Consider food. If I hear of other people visiting El Bulli, I might downgrade the quality of my own eating life on a survey. But I don’t enjoy my Sichuan Chili Chicken or my Silpancho any less.
3. "…its a great testament to economic progess that, walking round the city
center these days, say, it’s very hard to differentiate the rich and the
poor in the first instance. In this sense, things have indeed become a
lot more egalitarian." That is from one of Greg’s commentators.
4. Envy tends to be local. Few Americans resent Bill Gates or Warren Buffett. The real definition of a wealthy man is one who earns more than his wife’s sister’s husband.
5. Greg Mankiw suggests that perhaps we segregate the rich into places like Nantucket and Aspen, so as to minimize the envy of the poor. That won’t get at the root of the problem, as expressed in #4.
What we need to do is tax gatherings of extended family and other like-minded people.
Blogs which give our lives meaning
Here is the blog, here is the premise:
From August 28, 2006 through August 27, 2007, I’m going
to buy (at least) one…superfluous item, use it, and then write
about it. What made me want to buy it? How did it feel to give someone
money, and take a product in exchange? What will the workers think of
me? If it’s food, what will it taste like? If it’s a product, what will
happen when I use it for the first time? What kind of feeling will I
get when I plug it in, charge it up, and turn it on? [Judith] Levine calls her
experience "voluntary simplicity." I’ll call mine "conscious
consumerism."…Since today is the first day of my year of superfluous shopping, I
decided to kick off the experiment by purchasing the book that inspired
me: Judith Levine’s Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping.
It’s hard to think of something less necessary than a book about why
it’s good to stop shopping. For that reason, and because I felt I
should be familiar with and understand Levine’s work if I’m going to
fully understand my own, I made this book the first purchase of the
year.
The public library is my version of this idea, the price is free, and the blog is called MarginalRevolution.com.
Forward contracts in Spanish ham
The regulators
have been satisfied and high-quality Spanish ham can now be bought in
the United States. "Bought" is the operative word, you still have to
wait for the aging:
Saltzman and several hundred other people felt strongly enough about
getting some really good ham to willingly plunk down their money months
or even years before they would actually get to eat it, La Tienda could
demonstrate to the producer that complying with U.S.D.A. rules would
have a financial payoff. The store began selling the chorizo in July;
the hams from bellota-fed pigs have another year or so hanging in
mountain air.
It can hang in your living room. Why shell out the thousand bucks?
…food lovers like him understand…And in the end, the elaborate
narrative of the ham (the way it is produced, his advance payment, the
visit to the picturesque town in western Spain where it’s made) is a
thing to be savored almost as much as the meat itself. “I must say,”
Saltzman adds, “I’ve gotten incredible mileage out of the whole ham
story.”
And don’t forget the pro-globalization angle to the story:
…the nexus of an ever-shrinking world and gourmet culture’s eternal
quest for authentic, regional products have often had the effect of
saving artisanal food products that might have died out
Here is the full story, and thanks to Don Boudreaux for the pointer. Buy it here, and yes that is from acorn-fed black pigs…
The pedagogy of comparative advantage
What does the theory of comparative advantage (or see the Wikipedia entry) actually predict?
1. Every person will trade with every other person in the world. This is clearly false, although it would seem to follow from some presentations of the concept.
2. In a world of only two people, they will probably trade with each other. This is very likely true (especially if they are both "hot"), though not certain at the theoretical level.
3. Everyone will trade with at least someone. Whoop-dee-doo.
Worse, #3 is not even true.
The key counterexample is animals. They have well-defined preferences, downward-sloping demand curves, demand for multiple commodities (if only both food and water, plus of course sex), and differential abilities. Yet most animals don’t trade with any other animals.
Why not? There are high fixed costs to trading at all. Most animals can’t overcome those costs. They aren’t smart enough. Lack of opposable thumbs, or lack of extended long-term trust, are other obstacles, not to mention "fear of being eaten." There is nothing in a Walrasian model to rule out q = 0 no matter what kind of critters are walking around.
In human communities there will be much more trade than we find amongst the eagles. But the theory of comparative advantage deflects our attention away from the fixed costs of trading. As a result, many people overestimate the benefits that free trade (which, I might add, I fully favor) will bring to the developing world. And they underestimate the importance of those fixed costs of trading in holding nations — and people — back from a better future.
Chicken tikka masala
Robin Cook announced chicken tikka masala as the new national dish of Great Britain. Food critics immediately responded by condemning it as a British invention. Chicken tikka masala, they sneered, was not a shining example of British multiculturalism but a demonstration of the British facility for reducing all foreign foods to their most unappetizing and inedible forms. Rathar than the inspired invention of an enterprising Indian chef, this offensive dish was dismissed as the result of an ignorant customer’s complaint that his chicken tikka was too dry. When the chef whipped together a can of Campbell’s tomato soup, some cream, and a few spices to provide a gravy for the offending chicken, he produced a mongrel dish of which, to their shame, Britons now eat at least 18 tons a week.
That is from Lizzie Collingham’s Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors, an excellent look at the history of Indian food, and especially the Persian origins of many Indian dishes.
Does blogging improve our lives?
I’m not talking about BlogAds revenue or better chances to write Op-Eds. I mean our lives. Ben Casnocha writes:
…I recently had a great solo dinner in Rome. I had a
terrific companion (newspaper) and good food. About 1/4 of the way
through this thought crossed my mind: "This is an awesome meal. I’m
going to blog it." I did. I was committed in my mind to making it a positive night overall, and it did end up that way. In sum: when
I know I’m going to blog an experience, I’m committed to making it a
positive experience, and since intention and reaction mostly define the
quality of an experience, it usually turns out positive. True, I
could always commit to having positive days each day, but knowing I
will blog something introduces a weird form of "public accountability."
Ben is an excellent blogger; here are Ben’s impressions of France. Is he right about blogging?
Who is to blame for the Doha collapse?
"Almost everyone" is not a bad answer. But perhaps you would like something more precise. Christian Bjørnskov has developed an index of blame, based on the degree of protectionism in a country’s negotiating position. He writes:
In total, a number of countries must share responsibility for the breakdown. Brazil and other Third World food exporters probably were too ambitious on behalf of the developed countries, India refused to accept more competition in its comparatively weak industries, and the US position remained opaque while the country for too long hid behind the protectionist positions of other member states. However, the bottom line is that the main culprit – the member bearing most of the responsibility – is the European Union. The problem continues to be that the official policy of the union is controlled by Southern European countries with strong agricultural lobbies – and the policy is therefore rather clearly dictated by Paris. French top politicians have throughout the negotiations ‘protected’ French farmers against cuts in tariffs or support measures – Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin both went on air in national media to ensure their voters that France would veto any liberalization – which makes the country the Global Public Enemy Number One. Yet, another part of the story that needs to be told is that other EU members also made an indirect effort. The EU as a whole and traditionally liberalist countries such as the UK and Denmark in particular are all accomplices.
Colombia, a country with virtually no influence, had the highest pro-trade score. Bjørnskov does discuss the fact that the U.S. took an "easy" pro-trade position (it knew other countries would never agree), but I am not sure how this influenced his calculation of the index scores.
Thanks to Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard for the pointer.
What caused the Agricultural Revolution?
I have long assumed (without much evidence) that mankind invented agriculture about 10,000 years ago because we suddenly, for some reason, became smarter. Now I see an alternative explanation:
It is no accident that no matter where agriculture sprouted on the
globe, it always happened near rivers. You might assume, as many have,
that this is because the plants needed the water or nutrients. Mostly
this is not true. They needed the power of flooding, which scoured
landscapes and stripped out competitors. Nor is it an accident, I
think, that agriculture arose independently and simultaneously around
the globe just as the last ice age ended, a time of enormous upheaval
when glacial melt let loose sea-size lakes to create tidal waves of
erosion. It was a time of catastrophe.
Here is the source. Should I take the author seriously? Most of the article is terrible.
His main kind of argument — thinking about food in terms of energy costs — is popping up more and more. No, I don’t think a quick perusal of Debreu’s Theory of Value refutes the resource pessimists, but a) the author rarely talks about the role of prices, and b) technological efficiency and economic efficiency are confused frequently.
Perhaps most disturbingly, a healthy, wealthy, and happy human life is considered a burden upon the earth. For instance we are told that if the entire world lived like the United States, fossil fuels would run out within seven year’s time, or maybe ten. What a horror such a world would be. There is no talk of how much higher the rate of invention would be, or how much we would save by having better institutions.
By the way, here is my highly relevant post on the economics of mulch.
Suite Francaise, part II
They were alone — they felt they were alone — in the great sleeping house. Not a word of their true feelings was spoken; they didn’t kiss. There was simply silence. Silence followed by feverish, passionate conversation about their own countries, their families, music, books…They felt a strange happiness, an urgent need to reveal their hearts to each other — the urgency of lovers, which is already a gift, the very first one, the gift of the soul before the body surrenders "Know me, look at me. This is who I am. This is how I have lived, this is what I have loved. And you? What about you my darling?" But up until now, not a single word of love. What was the point?
And no, I am not going to tell you what happens…
Those Michelin Stars Translate as Dollar Signs
Here is my latest New York Times column, on the economics of fine dining and The Society for Quantitative Gastronomy. It is fitting that I am now in Lyon. Excerpt:
Receiving a Michelin star increases prices in a Parisian restaurant
by 20 percent, controlling for measures of quality, décor and location.
Michelin-starred restaurants in fancy hotels, or in areas with other
Michelin-starred restaurants, also have higher prices, again adjusting
for quality. Diners are paying more to eat in fine or prestigious
surroundings, whether or not the food is better. One gastronomy expert,
speaking in Le Nouvel Observateur, noted, “Gaining a Michelin star
ensures that your banker will be kind to you.”
For those who hold
the food as their main concern, the researchers offer a way forward.
Dr. Verardi and Dr. Gergaud have built an index for overpriced and
underpriced restaurants, relative to their food. They use the Zagat
Survey to Parisian restaurants – whose popularity rankings are
generated by diners’ reports, not critics – to provide an independent
measure of customer satisfaction, which is then compared with price.
There is also a new Journal of Wine Economics, see the column for more information. Here is Dubner, on the same.
The unit bias
Nominal variables matter, even when we are deciding how much to eat on our plates:
To test [the unit bias], the researchers left a bowl of M&M sweets in the
hallway of an apartment building with a sign that read “Eat Your Fill:
please use the spoon to serve yourself”. Some days they left a
tablespoon-sized scoop, other days they left a quartercup scoop that
was four times as big. Passers-by could obviously help themselves to as
little or as much as they wanted regardless of which spoon was
provided, but on average, 1.67 times more M&M’s were taken on the
days the big scoop was left compared with the tablespoon-sized scoop.In
another experiment, the researchers found that, measured by weight,
significantly more pretzels were taken by passers-by when a
complimentary bowl of 60 whole pretzels was left in an apartment
building, compared with when a bowl of 120 half-pretzels was left. And
it was a similar story when either a bowl of 80 small Tootsie rolls (an
American snack bar) or a bowl of 20 large Tootsie rolls was left in an
office building.In other words, throughout the study, people
took more food when the unit on offer was larger. “Consumption norms
promote both the tendency to complete eating a unit and the idea that a
single unit is the proper portion”, the researchers said.
Here is further information. There is a lesson for macroeconomics in here, somewhere.
Trip thoughts
That was at the Hotel Real, the dish is called "Wiener Backhahn." When we asked how to get to the restaurant, one Lichtensteiner (what do you call them in the English language?) said "It is close. Lichtenstein is very small. (Pause) But it is very beautiful." Zurich has a high percentage of foreigners; it feels like 20 percent or more. The Western side of the city is now "cool," and almost bohemian; eat at LaSalle. The Swiss seem to have legalized prostitution. The French-speaking Swiss generally favor joining the EU; the German speakers — 63% of the country — do not. The German speakers also are more likely to speak good English than good French. Crossing the border, German bookstores do not feature Freakonomics prominently; their economics sections are full of doom and gloom about Germany; are Levitt and Dubner too entertaining for them? Some guy named Frank Schatzing has an 800-page German science fiction bestseller called Der Schwarm, just translated into English, is it any good? Swiss food prices have gone through the roof. I’ve experienced the $30 pizza, the $40 schnitzel, and the $42 breakfast, all good but none extraordinary. Rural Switzerland now has plenty of Thai restaurants. Switzerland was the first country where I first saw first-rate scenery, mountains, or for that matter cows. Does this mean I still overrate the value of the Swiss landscape? Paris was the first city where Natasha was able to go shopping and see the West; does she overrate it? Do I overrate German bread and orange juice? What was the first good blog you read?
Central Planting
The technologies of mass agriculture, including genetic engineering, prevented the mass starvation of humanity in the last century. But today most of humanity lives on just 12 plant species and some scientists are worried that a lack of variety may prove our undoing. Some types of banana, for example, have already been wiped out or are threatened (Snopes is more cautious but verifies the basic facts).
To protect our seed patrimony is the goal of the Svalbard International
Seed Vault.
The high-security vault, almost half the length of a football field, will
be carved into a mountain on a remote island above the Arctic Circle. If the
looming fences, motion detectors and steel air-lock doors are not disincentive
enough for anyone hoping to breach the facility’s concrete interior, the polar
bears roaming outside should help….Its precious contents? Seeds — millions and millions of them — from
virtually every variety of food on the planet.
Thanks to Carl Close for the pointer.