The new Will Smith movie is called Seven Pounds. Here's what I think the movie is about. Will Smith hurt himself, I think. He now has a power to save seven people, maybe even take away their infirmities. But only if they're good people and deserve it. He then meets a woman who he loves and loves him back. That apparently screws up the deal. When asked what he is going to do, he likes to smile. His name isn't Ben. The soundtrack almost sounds like that song from Working Girl, but not exactly. This trailer is a complete masterpiece. It is actually to embody some very generic emotions without ever being specifically about anything. It should win some kind of award, as I can only imagine that that is in fact much harder to accomplish than it seems.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Prisoner's Dilemma?
Why did the bailout fail? What Do the Data Say? says it was because of collusion, and an incentive to cheat. Specifically,
My initial guess is it's the classic problem of collusion. Everyone agrees to do something, in this case to vote "Yes," but everyone has a political incentive to "cheat" and vote "No." If enough people cheat, then the legislation doesn't pass.The blogger points us the Economist which suggests something similar did in fact happen. Crikey!
Ron Paul After the Bill Failed
Pretty interesting perspective on the failure of the bill from Ron Paul.
Stock Market Crushed
After the House failed to pass the bill, $1.2 trillion was lost. Let that number sink in. I spoke with my old dissertation adviser just now and he told me, "Well you're young. You'll survive this." It was surreal to hear him tell me that, though, let me tell you.
Egads
Man, I really hope Casey Mulligan is right that this is all going to be contained to the financial sector.
I do know that I kept getting emails this morning from colleagues saying that our local congressman had gotten 5 to 1 calls on the phone saying to reject the bill. Which of course SUCKS, but it suggests our elected officials are simply doing the idiotic things their idiotic constituents tell them to do.
Of course, maybe Casey Mulligan is right!
Markets are down 7-10% since opening. Dow is down 7%, while the S&P500 is down 8.73%.
I do know that I kept getting emails this morning from colleagues saying that our local congressman had gotten 5 to 1 calls on the phone saying to reject the bill. Which of course SUCKS, but it suggests our elected officials are simply doing the idiotic things their idiotic constituents tell them to do.
Of course, maybe Casey Mulligan is right!
Markets are down 7-10% since opening. Dow is down 7%, while the S&P500 is down 8.73%.
Price Gouging
Art Carden, assistant professor at Rhodes in Memphis, breaks price gouging down for us, showing it's based on faulty reasoning (the criticism of it I mean).
Writing articles like these must feel like tilting at windmills. Every time there is a natural disaster and prices rise, there is a chorus of voices saying it's price gouging. What drives, therefore, economists like Art Carden, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell and so many others to write these pieces again and again? It's not simple cost-benefit calculation, you can bet on that. These op-ed pieces are expensive to write, in terms of one's opportunity costs, and they hardly persuade anyone at the margin if I had to guess. But maybe they filter through the chain of social networks and get good reasoning into the hands of people who can tell their parents or siblings or co-workers exactly why the price needs to go up. Still, if you write for the purpose of changing people's minds, it must feel an awful lot like tilting at windmills since the world is going to still be as confused an economically illiterate after you write your piece as it was before.
Writing articles like these must feel like tilting at windmills. Every time there is a natural disaster and prices rise, there is a chorus of voices saying it's price gouging. What drives, therefore, economists like Art Carden, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell and so many others to write these pieces again and again? It's not simple cost-benefit calculation, you can bet on that. These op-ed pieces are expensive to write, in terms of one's opportunity costs, and they hardly persuade anyone at the margin if I had to guess. But maybe they filter through the chain of social networks and get good reasoning into the hands of people who can tell their parents or siblings or co-workers exactly why the price needs to go up. Still, if you write for the purpose of changing people's minds, it must feel an awful lot like tilting at windmills since the world is going to still be as confused an economically illiterate after you write your piece as it was before.
Minority Report
Casey Mulligan is one of the younger bright-lights at the University of Chicago economics department. I knew a guy that was in Casey's cohort back in the mid-90s, and by the time my friend graduated, Casey Mulligan was already full professor at Chicago. For those outside academia, we call that HOLY SHIT as it's rare and happens only twice every passing of Haley's Comet.
Anyway, add Casey to the list taking the minority position that the multiplier effects from the financial sector are small and won't reverberate throughout the broader US economy.
I've heard similar such arguments from David Levine, too.
Anyway, add Casey to the list taking the minority position that the multiplier effects from the financial sector are small and won't reverberate throughout the broader US economy.
I've heard similar such arguments from David Levine, too.
Obama
I wonder what this bailout, assuming it goes through and the total costs end up being at least as high as the current $700 billion, will do for the incoming administration. One can only hope that the government responds to this increased deficit by pushing off some spending programs instead of simply printing money or raising taxes. Either way, I suspect Obama's plans for healthcare will be severely curtailed by the ever-widening budget deficit. Unless those higher marginal taxes on the top .1% are going to be enough.
The Panic of 2007
Is that what they'll be calling it? The first decade of the new millennium turned out to be a real doozy. Bush had some impossible bookends to his administration, with a bunch of natural disasters and everything else in-between. Anyway, Yale economist, Gary B. Gorton, has a new working paper at NBER entitled The Panic of 2007. Here's what he says of the panic in the abstract.
On a related note, I encourage you to read the Erik Hurst guest post over at Freakonomics where he's put into the uncomfortable and non-enviable position of defending subprime lending. He writes,
AbstractThe chain of events he notes is exactly what I was explaining to my macro students last spring. Good to know I didn't completely screw their minds up. These information asymmetries are coming up a lot right now from a lot of people, and that's something I'm only just now starting to learn about. This working paper, though, looks like a very good primer of the current situation. I'm sure it will not be the last one written.
How did problems with subprime mortgages result in a systemic crisis, a panic? The ongoing Panic of 2007 is due to a loss of information about the location and size of risks of loss due to default on a number of interlinked securities, special purpose vehicles, and derivatives, all related to subprime mortgages. Subprime mortgages are a financial innovation designed to provide home ownership opportunities to riskier borrowers. Addressing their risk required a particular design feature, linked to house price appreciation. Subprime mortgages were then financed via securitization, which in turn has a unique design reflecting the subprime mortgage design. Subprime securitization tranches were often sold to CDOs, which were, in turn, often purchased by market value off-balance sheet vehicles. Additional subprime risk was created (though not on net) with derivatives. When the housing price bubble burst, this chain of securities, derivatives, and off-balance sheet vehicles could not be penetrated by most investors to determine the location and size of the risks. The introduction of the ABX indices, synthetics related to portfolios of subprime bonds, in 2006 created common knowledge about the effects of these risks by providing centralized prices and a mechanism for shorting. I describe the relevant securities, derivatives, and vehicles and provide some very simple, stylized, examples to show: (1) how asymmetric information between the sell-side and the buy-side was created via complexity; (2) how the chain of interlinked securities was sensitive to house prices; (3) how the risk was spread in an opaque way; and (4) how the ABX indices allowed information to be aggregated and revealed. I argue that these details are at the heart of the answer to the question of the origin of the Panic of 2007.
On a related note, I encourage you to read the Erik Hurst guest post over at Freakonomics where he's put into the uncomfortable and non-enviable position of defending subprime lending. He writes,
Knowing what we know now, what is the optimal approach to regulating the subprime sector? Some argue that we should outlaw subprime lending completely. But do we really want to return to the world where the well-off have access to credit, but the historically denied (the poor, the young, African-Americans) can’t access the housing market or other credit markets? Is it really O.K. for only some households to use credit to help them ride out bad times, while others must just do without?There is no such thing as a free lunch, unfortunately. If we learn one day that to increase equity along those poverty dimensions, it resulted in a near collapse of the American financial sector, we will have to seriously reconsider our poverty programs - all of them.
ESSA Roundup
The revised version of the original Paulson plan is expected to gain passage in the House later today but it's not out the woods yet. Both Democrat and Republican members of the House had to make concessions.
The Congressional Budget Office analyzes the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (ESSA). Here, too, is Becker's thoughts: “… While I find helping these banks highly distasteful, moral hazard concerns should be put aside temporarily when the whole short term credit system is close to a complete collapse…” This is a view I think most people share, including me. When you're on a sinking ship, I think your main priority should be getting out alive, not polishing the brass (which is personally how I took the Newt Gingrich quote).
James Hamilton (UC-San Diego) over at Econbrowser shows how gross domestic income (GDI), versus gross domestic product (GDP), reveals we are currently in a recession. Even though theoretically the two measures are equivalent (since all production is income), when different data sources are used to calculate those numbers, they are always different, and the difference is attributed to just statistical discrepancy. Federal Reserve economist, Jeremy Nalewaik (nice profile pic, btw - similar to the one in our office collage of faculty pictures. Ties are for l0zerz!) says that GDI may be preferable for determining the timing of recessions, and produces a probability index similar to Hamilton's own recession probability index (which is based on GDP). His calculations show a recession starting late last year (Q4). This solves at least some of the discrepancies that have been puzzling to people following this - employment and income data consistently have been falling, whereas GDP numbers have been strong. Why? Not sure if this is an answer, but GDP has been strong in part due to the depreciation of the dollar pushing up exports even while residential construction has fallen off by a lot. Why that would explain income/production differences though is beyond me since domestic producers selling goods to foreigners would have more income. Still, point is, that statistical discrepancy could be masking the timing of the recession, which makes sense since the employment data has been sharply negative all year, and unemployment now stands at 6.1%, and has a fairly steep positive slope month-to-month suggesting it may keep rising, and possibly at the same rate (it was at 5.7% in July, and 5.0% back in April).
Here's what Hamilton says about that, if it's the case.
All sides had to surrender something. The administration had to accept limits on executive pay and tougher oversight; Democrats had to sacrifice a push to allow bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgages; and Republicans fell short in their effort to require that the federal government insure, rather than buy, the bad debt.One thing that appears to be new is what the consequences will be if the plan loses money after five years. The Treasury will recoup its losses by directly taxing the financial sector if after five years the plan is a net loss.
The final version of the bill included a deal-sealing plan for eventually recouping losses; if the Treasury program to purchase and resell troubled mortgage-backed securities has lost money after five years, the president must submit a plan to Congress to recover those losses from the financial industry. Presumably that plan would involve new fees or taxes, perhaps on securities transactions.Calculated Risk discusses other changes, such as the suspension of mark-to-market accounting, allowing banks to earn interest and maintain a "zero reserve ratio", and market transparency. That is,
SEC. 114. MARKET TRANSPARENCY.So all of these transactions will be available for all to see, which is good.
(a) PRICING.—To facilitate market transparency, the Secretary shall make available to the public, in electronic form, a description, amounts, and pricing of assets acquired under this Act, within 2 business days of purchase, trade, or other disposition.
(b) DISCLOSURE.—For each type of financial institutions that is authorized to use the program established under this Act, the Secretary shall determine whether the public disclosure required for such financial institutions with respect to off-balance sheet transactions, derivatives instruments, contingent liabilities, and similar sources of potential exposure is adequate to provide to the public sufficient information as to the true financial position of the institutions. If such disclosure is not adequate for that purpose, the Secretary shall make recommendations for additional disclosure requirements to the relevant regulators.
The Congressional Budget Office analyzes the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (ESSA). Here, too, is Becker's thoughts: “… While I find helping these banks highly distasteful, moral hazard concerns should be put aside temporarily when the whole short term credit system is close to a complete collapse…” This is a view I think most people share, including me. When you're on a sinking ship, I think your main priority should be getting out alive, not polishing the brass (which is personally how I took the Newt Gingrich quote).
James Hamilton (UC-San Diego) over at Econbrowser shows how gross domestic income (GDI), versus gross domestic product (GDP), reveals we are currently in a recession. Even though theoretically the two measures are equivalent (since all production is income), when different data sources are used to calculate those numbers, they are always different, and the difference is attributed to just statistical discrepancy. Federal Reserve economist, Jeremy Nalewaik (nice profile pic, btw - similar to the one in our office collage of faculty pictures. Ties are for l0zerz!) says that GDI may be preferable for determining the timing of recessions, and produces a probability index similar to Hamilton's own recession probability index (which is based on GDP). His calculations show a recession starting late last year (Q4). This solves at least some of the discrepancies that have been puzzling to people following this - employment and income data consistently have been falling, whereas GDP numbers have been strong. Why? Not sure if this is an answer, but GDP has been strong in part due to the depreciation of the dollar pushing up exports even while residential construction has fallen off by a lot. Why that would explain income/production differences though is beyond me since domestic producers selling goods to foreigners would have more income. Still, point is, that statistical discrepancy could be masking the timing of the recession, which makes sense since the employment data has been sharply negative all year, and unemployment now stands at 6.1%, and has a fairly steep positive slope month-to-month suggesting it may keep rising, and possibly at the same rate (it was at 5.7% in July, and 5.0% back in April).
Here's what Hamilton says about that, if it's the case.
There's an important implication of this for the ongoing discussion of the current financial turmoil. The U.S. is currently in a recession, and events of the last two weeks are sure to make things worse for the next few months, even if we had some policy to bring immediate stability to financial markets. That is water under the bridge at this point.Too little, too late maybe the conclusion we can draw if the economy slipped into the recession in Q4:2007. As the colonies on Battlestar Galatica say, all of this has happened and will happen again. We should all be bracing ourselves. This may be the worst economic situation we all find ourselves in. I am especially nervous, seeing as how I'm tenure-track but not tenured.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Erik Hurst Explains the Dangers of Re-Regulation of the Financial Sector
An extremely worthwhile read by guest blogger over at Freakonomics, Erik Hurst. Hurst is a regular co-author of Kerwin Charles, whose work I am more familiar with, and I didn't realize til reading Wolfers introduction that Hurst was mainly a macroeconomist. I think he must write a lot about income and expenditure patterns, and specifically racial inequities, when he does do his micro work as that's the main things I've seen by him. Anyhow, this is more of an explanation of how the financial sector works, and why it is an important part of the overall macroeconomy. The short answer is that it bridges private savings with private investment, and it's private investment ultimately that drives income growth via increased total factor productivity (ie, more output per worker and more output per unit of capital, etc.). Increased regulation of banks that limits banking activity inadvertently limits economic growth, since growth is tied so closely to the ability to access private savings. Read the whole thing, though - don't take my word for it.
Here, too, is a working paper with Charles on home ownership and the black/white income gap. Written in 2001, and still unpublished, it might be an interesting read in light of the total collapse of the housing sector, and potentially the financial sector too.
Here, too, is a working paper with Charles on home ownership and the black/white income gap. Written in 2001, and still unpublished, it might be an interesting read in light of the total collapse of the housing sector, and potentially the financial sector too.
Valkyrie (Trailer) Looks Good
I hope for the sake of Tom Cruise, Kenneth Brannaugh, and Bryan Singer (all of whom have had some hiccups in their otherwise promising and successful careers) that this movie is as good as it seems from this trailer.
Un-American Bailout or American Recession
Newt calls the bailout "un-American", making the Great Depression the ideal, I guess.
Paul Newman RIP
Paul Newman has passed away. The world has lost a Hollywood star, in the old sense of the word. My favorite Paul Newman movie is Cool Hand Luke, but I also loved growing up A Long Hot Summer, Hustler, The Color of Money, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He had the handsome looks and the acting chops that made him a dream for studios and audiences, both men and women.
Update: A nice written statement by his daughters. I can only hope to be remembered so well by my children. "Our father was a rare symbol of selfless humility, the last to acknowledge what he was doing was special," his daughters said in a written statement. "Intensely private, he quietly succeeded beyond measure in impacting the lives of so many with his generosity."
One article said that his own greatest legacy, as far as he was concerned, was his charitable work. I had also meant to say that he married Joann Woodward some time in the 1950s and stayed with her his entire life. By all accounts, he was a good father, friend and husband.
Update deux: A very nice obituary. I look forward to reading more about him and his private life over the next few days.
Update: A nice written statement by his daughters. I can only hope to be remembered so well by my children. "Our father was a rare symbol of selfless humility, the last to acknowledge what he was doing was special," his daughters said in a written statement. "Intensely private, he quietly succeeded beyond measure in impacting the lives of so many with his generosity."
One article said that his own greatest legacy, as far as he was concerned, was his charitable work. I had also meant to say that he married Joann Woodward some time in the 1950s and stayed with her his entire life. By all accounts, he was a good father, friend and husband.
Update deux: A very nice obituary. I look forward to reading more about him and his private life over the next few days.
Friday, September 26, 2008
50 Cent/Queen Mashup
A genius in the Europe (I'm going to just say the Netherlands - I'm feeling a little reckless) has a mashup of Queen and 50 Cent, complete with awesome coverart. As you can see, this is undoubtedly the greatest album in history, yet when I click through, I can't find it. So I need my 2-3 readers to do the hard work while I try to finish grading my students' homeworks. Stat people!
Atlantis
Saw this on Digg. More pictures of the ginormous hotel in Dubai. I didn't realize it was Atlantis themed. And when I say Atlantis-themed, I'm not saying like a little. This is a $1.5 billion amusement park as far as I can tell, full of even mythological stories about the lost city of Atlantis embedded in its rooms. Like the one room I saw that claimed to be whether the Atlanteans trained for martial arts. I kind of want to go, but I'm going to use my powers of telepathy to see if my wife will ever let me. Damn she thought no!
Missing Women and Resulting Crime
Economists, demographers and sociologists have for years argued that imbalanced sex ratios can have damaging effects on society via the marriage market. In a recent paper, Edlund, Li, Yi and Zhang find that a surplus of men causes an increase in crime. Here's the abstract:
Crime rates almost doubled in China between 1992 and 2004. Over the same period, sex ratios (males to females) in the crime-prone ages of 16-25 years rose sharply, from 1.053 to 1.093. Although scarcity of females is commonly believed to be a source of male antisocial behavior, a causal link has been difficult to establish. Sex-ratio variation is typically either small or related to social conditions liable to also affect crime rates. This paper exploits two unique features of the Chinese experience: the change in the sex ratio was both large and mainly in response to the implementation of the one-child policy. Using annual province-level data covering the years 1988-2004, we find that a 0.01 increase in the sex ratio raised the violent and property crime rates by some 5-6%, suggesting that the increasing maleness of the young adult population may account for as much as a third of the overall rise in crime.A similar argument was put forth in the book from a few years ago, Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population by Hudson and Den.
Community Reinvestment Act
Eventually, I'd like to really dig in and learn more about this Community Reinvestment Act. Videos like this one claim it was the cause of the air filling this bubble til it popped.
Don't forget while you're watching this that correlation is not evidence of causality, though. Just showing a graph of before and after and claiming that the only thing different after is the CRA is misleading. The person may be right, but you should be skeptical watching this (and everything else). Still I need to sit down and study this closely. Put CRA in the long list of potential culprits.
Don't forget while you're watching this that correlation is not evidence of causality, though. Just showing a graph of before and after and claiming that the only thing different after is the CRA is misleading. The person may be right, but you should be skeptical watching this (and everything else). Still I need to sit down and study this closely. Put CRA in the long list of potential culprits.
Man Has Penis Amputated
I heard that George Washington had a fear of being buried alive. I now officially have a fear of having my penis amputated while I go under the knife for having my foreskin removed (thankfully mine was removed a long time ago, but I'm not going to give up on this fear that easily).
What's the lesson here? I think it is at minimum that you shouldn't cut off a person's penis unless you have their permission, preferably in writing.
LOUISVILLE, Ky - A Kentucky man and his wife said two doctors amputated the man's penis without his consent, and have filed a lawsuit.Egads! Apparently, the man had cancer in his penis, and went in for surgery that would have removed just the foreskin (allegedly). When they went in, they found the cancer was worse and opted to amputate the entirety of the penis. He's suing the hospital (or the doctors; not sure).
According to the lawsuit, Philip Seaton, 61, went to have a circumcision last October as part of treatment for a medical condition. Seaton said when he woke up from the procedure, he realized his penis had been amputated.
Seaton has suffered mental anguish, pain, and has lost the enjoyment of life, according to the lawsuit.
What's the lesson here? I think it is at minimum that you shouldn't cut off a person's penis unless you have their permission, preferably in writing.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
President Obama
Ray Fair is Emily Oster's dad, and has a well-known model called appropriately the Fair Model. Basically he predicts the outcome of Presidential elections based just on three variables: GDP Growth, Inflation and "Good News." I think other variables are added, as I also see "War" in one of the tables. But the economic indicators are the strongest is my point. What Fair has consistently found is that the single most important prediction of an outcome of the Presidential election is GDP growth and inflation. The original paper which presented the model was a 1978 Review of Economics & Statistics piece, and every election he updates it - sometimes publishing the new results, sometimes not.
Well, my sense has always been that because of Fair's model being so awesomely predictive of the correct Presidential victor - namely, that during difficult economic times, incumbent parties lose and during strong economic times, incumbent parties win, regardless of anything else going on - that there was no way the Republicans could win. The housing recession began last year, and things felt very shaky with inflation starting to rise and job insecurities increasing. Then inTrade started with a Democratic contract of 60 all the way back to January, even before anyone knew who the actual candidates were going to be on either party.
Then things started to narrow, until shortly after the RNC, McCain's contract for the first time actually showed him winning. Wow, right? Palin is that awesome I guess. Then last week, we learned that there is a time bomb set in the vaults of about 50,000 banks and hedge funds about to go off (some already have gone off), and only Jack Bauer (or Hank Paulson, whatever you want to call him) can find them all and defuse them in time. Then we learned the contracts at inTrade don't make any sense, and suggest someone has been buying high volume McCain contracts - some total degenerate gambler it seems like. So what now? Today I look at what do I see? Obama is back up to 60. The whole Palin madness appears to have been an anamoly, and the degenerate gambler appears to have gone home to sleep it off. So, I'm back to believing in the Fair Model, and seeing how McCain has responded to the financial problems, I can't say I'm disappointed with the possibility of President Obama. Senator McCain has completely unnerved me, and I'm not sure I like the idea of him at the head of a sinking ship.
Well, my sense has always been that because of Fair's model being so awesomely predictive of the correct Presidential victor - namely, that during difficult economic times, incumbent parties lose and during strong economic times, incumbent parties win, regardless of anything else going on - that there was no way the Republicans could win. The housing recession began last year, and things felt very shaky with inflation starting to rise and job insecurities increasing. Then inTrade started with a Democratic contract of 60 all the way back to January, even before anyone knew who the actual candidates were going to be on either party.
Then things started to narrow, until shortly after the RNC, McCain's contract for the first time actually showed him winning. Wow, right? Palin is that awesome I guess. Then last week, we learned that there is a time bomb set in the vaults of about 50,000 banks and hedge funds about to go off (some already have gone off), and only Jack Bauer (or Hank Paulson, whatever you want to call him) can find them all and defuse them in time. Then we learned the contracts at inTrade don't make any sense, and suggest someone has been buying high volume McCain contracts - some total degenerate gambler it seems like. So what now? Today I look at what do I see? Obama is back up to 60. The whole Palin madness appears to have been an anamoly, and the degenerate gambler appears to have gone home to sleep it off. So, I'm back to believing in the Fair Model, and seeing how McCain has responded to the financial problems, I can't say I'm disappointed with the possibility of President Obama. Senator McCain has completely unnerved me, and I'm not sure I like the idea of him at the head of a sinking ship.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Ebert is THE Answer Man of all Answer Mans
Ebert responds to someone who loved Disaster Movie, and it's hysterical.
Q. Yo dude, u missed out on "Disaster Movie," a hardcore laugh-ur-@zz-off movie! Y U not review this movie!? It was funny as #ell! Prolly the funniest movie of the summer! U never review these, wat up wit dat?
S.J. Stanczak, Chicago
A. Hey, bro, I wuz buzier than $#i+, @d they never shoed it b4 hand. I peeped in the IMDb and saw it zoomed to #1 as the low$ie$t flic of all time, wit @ lame-@zz UZer Rating of 1.3. U liked it? Wat up wit dat?
Prediction Market Mayhem
Sounds like someone is screwing with the intrade contracts. InTrade's contracts on Obama are way, way different from ones at the Iowa Electronic Market and another across the pond, both of which show Obama winning at 61% compared to inTrade, which is closer to 52%. The writer also notes that the individual state contracts don't add up to make it such an even money race for Obama. I computed those state contracts two weeks in a row, and what I saw made it seem like McCain needed to get awfully lucky to pull it off - yet the winner-take-all contract was still at 50/50 or so. Kind of weird. Anyway, it sounds like these prediction markets aren't as efficient as we once thought - there appear to be arbitrage opportunities, but no one taking advantage of them.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Does Church Attendance Cause People to Vote?
A new NBER working paper from Alan Gerber, Jonathan Gruber, Daniel M. Hungerman entitled "Does Church Attendance Cause People to Vote? Using Blue Laws' Repeal to Estimate the Effect of Religiosity on Voter Turnout." The abstract reads
Regular church attendance is strongly associated with a higher probability of voting. It is an open question as to whether this association, which has been confirmed in numerous surveys, is causal. We use the repeal of the laws restricting Sunday retail activity ("Blue laws") to measure the effects of church-going on political participation. The repeal of Blue Laws caused a 5 percent decrease in church attendance. We measure the effect of Blue Laws' repeal on political participation and find that following the repeal turnout falls by approximately 1 percentage point. This turnout decline, which is statistically significant and fairly robust across model specifications, is consistent with the large effect of church attendance on turnout reported in the literature, and suggests that church attendance may have significant causal influence on voter turnout.Hungerman and Gruber, as you may remember, had a similar paper to this one recently published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics examining the impact of religious blue laws on church attendance.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Power Laws
I've been interested in "power laws" for literally years. Now, saying I've been interested is a bit of a fiction, too, though, because I wasn't so interested that I worked on it actively. But, my research on sex and STD constantly put me into contact with statisticians and epidemiologists writing about statistical properties of epidemics, and that led me to constantly having to figure out just what a power law even was. Plus, I'm a big fan of de Vany's book on "Hollywood Economics," which is basically a treatise on the power law when it comes down to it, so that also is a reason. The power law is, as far as I can tell, equivalent to that old adage you hear in church circles - that 80% of all the work done in church (giving, volunteering, etc.) is by 20% of the people. It is, in other words, a kind of superstar regularity - the idea that "most" of the revenues are accrued by the top 1% of all films made in a year, or some such. Still, the exact statistical properties is something I don't quite understand, so I always wished I could have found some paper written to someone to explain all that I needed to know about power laws and their relevance for economics. Xavier Gabaix may have done so with his new NBER working paper entitled appropriately "Power Laws in Economics and Finance." Here's the abstract.
A power law is the form taken by a large number of surprising empirical regularities in economics and finance. This article surveys well-documented empirical power laws concerning income and wealth, the size of cities and firms, stock market returns, trading volume, international trade, and executive pay. It reviews detail-independent theoretical motivations that make sharp predictions concerning the existence and coefficients of power laws, without requiring delicate tuning of model parameters. These theoretical mechanisms include random growth, optimization, and the economics of superstars coupled with extreme value theory. Some of the empirical regularities currently lack an appropriate explanation. This article highlights these open areas for future research.It's 62 pages and gated, so for those two reasons, you likely won't be reading it. But I might, and so just printed it out. Enjoy (or not)!
Comic Book Book Reviews
The Nation reviews two recent books on the comic book, one of which I own, the other of which I do not [is that the right use of "of which"? Nothing seems right anymore since the economy came crashing to a halt!].
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Becker-Posner
Krugman Doesn't Like It
Krugman doesn't like.
The Treasury plan, by contrast, looks like an attempt to restore confidence in the financial system — that is, convince creditors of troubled institutions that everything’s OK — simply by buying assets off these institutions. This will only work if the prices Treasury pays are much higher than current market prices; that, in turn, can only be true either if this is mainly a liquidity problem — which seems doubtful — or if Treasury is going to be paying a huge premium, in effect throwing taxpayers’ money at the financial world.That's the first time I've seen him suggest it may not be a liquidity problem. I've sensed that this was the goal - to pump liquidity into the system - but this does seem different. If it's a liquidity trap, then you pump money and the boat floats. If it's not a liquidity problem, but something fundamentally broken, then you pump money and the boat still capsizes.
Hating the Proposed Buyout
Naked Capitalism breaks it down. This paragraph stood out (ht to mr).
What scary times it is.
Now to the substance. The Treasury has been using the formula that it will buy assets at "fair market prices". As we have noted, there is simply huge amounts of cash ready to bottom fish in housing-related assets (we saw an estimate of $400 billion a couple of months ago). The issue is not lack of willing buyers; it's that the prospective sellers are not willing to accept prices that reflect the weak and deteriorating prospects for housing. Meredith Whitney, the Oppenheimer bank analyst who has made the most accurate earnings and writedown calls of her peer group, has noted how the housing market price decline assumptions used by major banks fall short of where the market is likely to bottom, given traditional price to income ratios and expectations reflected in housing futures prices.I always thought that whatever this thing was, it was a bailout at above market prices. Anyone will buy anything at any price. The question with the securities has always been what were their real prices? Since no one knew the default rates, the risks of the subprime securities weren't properly priced. I figured that whatever Paulson was doing, he was essentially trying to take the bad debt out of circulation so as to avoid a liquidity trap, but if he was doing that, he was of course going to be buying things at above market prices. Otherwise, there'd be no point in doing this. So we're taking a $800 billion gamble that is clearly negative expected value because Paulson, Bernanke and the FOMC believe the multiplier effects from a shock in aggregate demand of this sort will be much larger. If you believe in the Keynesian story of business cycles, that's the framework for interpreting this. The taxpayer isn't getting a "deal" in the sense that the worth of these securities is going to go up. Given the state of the world as it is now, and ignoring how we got here, the forecast is that the taxpayer will pay far more if no action is taken, or if we wait for a natural market correction. "In the longrun, we're all dead," saith Keynes.
In addition to the factors that Whitney (and others) have cited, the duration of the 1988-1992 US housing bear market and major financial crises suggests that that a peak-to-trough decline of 35-40% is realistic (obviously, this average masks substantial variation across markets and housing types). We are thus only a bit more than halfway through, as measured by the fall in prices.
Yet as we discussed, the plan makes no sense unless the Orwellian "fair market prices" means "above market prices." The point is not to free up illiquid assets. Illiquid assets (private equity, even the now derided CDOs were never intended to be traded, but pose no problem if they do not need to be marked at a large loss and/or the institution is not at risk of a run).
What scary times it is.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Advice from Suze Orman
Man, I am really out of it. I only vaguely know who Suze Orman is. But Freakonomics had her on to do Q&A, and given the Freakonomics audience, there are a lot of questions asked that are written by people like me - lots of educated, but starting late in the investment game. I encourage you to read the entire thing. It's very good. I am a big believer, btw, in stock market index funds (I'm an economist, so it's basically a requirement). With so much volatility in the stock market right now, I actually want to put more of my money in it, not less. And Orman says the same thing. You only invest in stocks for the longrun (her definition is 10-plus years), and I think despite what's happening now, you're crazy to bet against the American economy in the longrun. But right now, we're mainly focusing on building up some emergency funds, which is what everyone says one should do, so I figure I should. And not being tenured, but tenure-track, I figure it isn't improbable that I could get fired well before my tenure date, and for reasons unrelated to my research output. If this turns into a massive recession and hits incomes hard, who knows what it'll do to students paying tuition at private schools (where I am). The income elasticity of demand is probably not inelastic for a private university.
Professor and a Trader
That's the name of a NYT article profiling Bernanke and Paulson. Very interesting. I got honestly nauseous reading it. (I am sick and unable to keep things down right now, so maybe that's also it). When I read articles like this, I can feel the despair and the hopelessness of the current financial crisis, and it makes me very sick. Other times, I read things that don't seem so dire, and I think maybe we'll skate by. I can't imagine the families who are going to be hammered, blow after blow, by this thing before it's over. I pray for safety and healing for everyone hit by this.
Ebert Gives Lakeview Terrace 4 stars
Read Ebert's review of Lakeview Terrace. The movie is by Neil LaBute who, among other things, wrote and directed Your Friends & Neighbors. It is because of Ebert's review, and the inter-textual review mainly, and having seen Your Friends & Neighbors, that I may not have the stomach for Lakeview Terrace. LaBute has a dark, painful lining - non-redemptive you might say - to his work that reminds me of Todd Solondz. It's not that they aren't good storytellers. It's not that the movies aren't important, or that I disagree with the critical reviews that love both directors' films. But, in all seriousness, Your Friends & Neighbors and Happiness left scars on my soul that have still not healed, and I just don't feel capable of going back again. So, for the time, I'm passing on Lakeview Terrace despite Ebert's strong praise.
Dating Prostitutes
I'm currently doing an academic research project on prostitution, so I've got antennas up for any popular press piece that is about prostitution. In this article, the journalist takes a lot of prostitutes on simple dates (bowling, minature golf), and no sex, just to get a sense of who they are and what they are like. One of the women wants to be an economist - the next Alan Greenspan! (Bernanke has to be pissed if he's reading this. Diss!). Her plan to fund all the social programs without raising taxes will be quite an achievement, no doubt.
The article is well-written - a real humane piece. But there's nothing in here that I didn't already know, since all that is in it is personal stories of these women, and the stories are not too surprising. Like finding an older woman going through a change due to losing her job (not uncommon in the data we're collecting), or the college grad doing this because it pays so much more than the alternatives.
But, one thing that the journalist is doing, which he doesn't recognize, is that he's calling prostitutes from craigslist, which from what we're learning tend to be the most at-risk women in this industry. They are the historical street prostitutes, only they stand on the craigslist corner instead of the street corner. These women, at least based on reports, are the more naive women - less likely to use the available technology to screen clients, more likely to get arrested, more likely to get victimized by their clients (one woman in the article claims she was kidnapped for three days by her client - a lot of good that driver did for her then). A lot of the women we speak to do not advertise on craigslist, but have professional and personalized websites or use services that help them market to higher paying clientele. Still, it's an interesting article. What we're learning from our research, to be just very simple about it, is that the Internet has made this market larger than ever. Not only has it moved a lot of prostitution off the streets; it's also moved a lot of women into prostitution who wouldn't have done so twenty years ago. The chances of getting caught, arrested, or detected by friends/family are much lower as a result of these new technologies. It's also affected buyers too. No more Hugh Grant, cruising street corners. Just go to one of the several well-known websites where clients share information about the women they've been with, and use those services to help find more optimal prostitutes to spend time with. Not only does it lower the search costs, the Internet lowers the risks for contracting and increases the optimality of the match between client and seller. All that to say, we believe the Internet has brought a lot of people into this that previously were not. And if you think that social norms are a function of how common something is, then it wouldn't surprise me in the least if in ten-twenty years, solicitation is much less stigmatized compared to today.
Don't take this post as an endorsement of prostitution, btw. It's purely descriptive and theoretical.
The article is well-written - a real humane piece. But there's nothing in here that I didn't already know, since all that is in it is personal stories of these women, and the stories are not too surprising. Like finding an older woman going through a change due to losing her job (not uncommon in the data we're collecting), or the college grad doing this because it pays so much more than the alternatives.
But, one thing that the journalist is doing, which he doesn't recognize, is that he's calling prostitutes from craigslist, which from what we're learning tend to be the most at-risk women in this industry. They are the historical street prostitutes, only they stand on the craigslist corner instead of the street corner. These women, at least based on reports, are the more naive women - less likely to use the available technology to screen clients, more likely to get arrested, more likely to get victimized by their clients (one woman in the article claims she was kidnapped for three days by her client - a lot of good that driver did for her then). A lot of the women we speak to do not advertise on craigslist, but have professional and personalized websites or use services that help them market to higher paying clientele. Still, it's an interesting article. What we're learning from our research, to be just very simple about it, is that the Internet has made this market larger than ever. Not only has it moved a lot of prostitution off the streets; it's also moved a lot of women into prostitution who wouldn't have done so twenty years ago. The chances of getting caught, arrested, or detected by friends/family are much lower as a result of these new technologies. It's also affected buyers too. No more Hugh Grant, cruising street corners. Just go to one of the several well-known websites where clients share information about the women they've been with, and use those services to help find more optimal prostitutes to spend time with. Not only does it lower the search costs, the Internet lowers the risks for contracting and increases the optimality of the match between client and seller. All that to say, we believe the Internet has brought a lot of people into this that previously were not. And if you think that social norms are a function of how common something is, then it wouldn't surprise me in the least if in ten-twenty years, solicitation is much less stigmatized compared to today.
Don't take this post as an endorsement of prostitution, btw. It's purely descriptive and theoretical.
"I spent an interesting evening recently with a grain of salt."
Wow. First, read this post by Mark Shaney.
Now read the wikipedia entry on Mark Shaney. That post was generated by a Markov Chain process. Fascinating! And funny. (Mostly funny).
Now read the wikipedia entry on Mark Shaney. That post was generated by a Markov Chain process. Fascinating! And funny. (Mostly funny).
The History of Memes
What an awesome graph. The creation of the emoticon entry on Sept. 19, 1982 (its smileyface emoticon birthday was yesterday???!!!1) is really interesting. I don't think I really realized that it was purposefully created (allegedly) because the absence of body language made text communication victim to misunderstanding so often (particularly for sarcastic emails). But the emoticon is of course a breakthrough in that sense, particularly the winky-eye ;) or the smiley face :). I use emoticons all the time because I mainly use text communication to communicate with people. And for a long time, I didn't use them - and I constantly had trouble communicating, even when I'd devote a huge amount of time to ensuring the emails were properly worded or whatever. And then I realized - no matter what I do, I cannot stop someone from misunderstanding my tone. At some point, reluctantly, I started using emoticons. Until I looked at this timeline, and specifically the emoticon entry, I don't think I realized it - but I can't even remember the last time someone mistook my emails for anything other than the intended purpose. Partly because I think I don't really devote so much time to my letters anymore, but also I think because I do use the emoticons so regularly when writing sarcastic one-liners or what not.
New Simon Miniseries
The Wire's David Simon has a new HBO miniseries coming out on the Lincoln Assassination. Let's hope Simon's not in the diminishing returns to great television the way JJ Abrams is (or maybe Fringe is just an anomaly...).
A Silver Lining (for one)
Interesting story of a trader who figured out a way to "short houses" and has made a literal fortune (billions) off the housing implosion. (hattip to freakonomics)
Most Rewatched Movie
The Onion's AV has a great article this week asking critics what their most rewatched movies are. Brilliant ice breaker for a bunch of film critics, and really interesting to read. So what's yours (and what's mine)?
My most rewatched movies are going to be from childhood, where I averaged about 5-6 hours a day in front of the television, and from the time I was very little we had cable with several movie channels. Because we had Showtime, The Movie Channel, Cinemax and HBO, you'd end up watching a lot of the same movies since some movies were showing on all four channels, and thus were on at least once a day.
Probably one of my most watched shows is Mask starring Eric Stoltz and Cher. I don't like that movie, per se, but when it was on, I always watched it. Another one is The Goonies and still another is Back to the Future. Both of those filled an entire summer with almost daily bike rides and walks to the movie theater (sometimes with MoLT!). I think I saw Goonies 13 times on the first run of the film's release one summer. More recently, though, Boogie Nights, Rear Window and Cool Hand Luke come to mind - all born out of my high school and college days.
My most rewatched movies are going to be from childhood, where I averaged about 5-6 hours a day in front of the television, and from the time I was very little we had cable with several movie channels. Because we had Showtime, The Movie Channel, Cinemax and HBO, you'd end up watching a lot of the same movies since some movies were showing on all four channels, and thus were on at least once a day.
Probably one of my most watched shows is Mask starring Eric Stoltz and Cher. I don't like that movie, per se, but when it was on, I always watched it. Another one is The Goonies and still another is Back to the Future. Both of those filled an entire summer with almost daily bike rides and walks to the movie theater (sometimes with MoLT!). I think I saw Goonies 13 times on the first run of the film's release one summer. More recently, though, Boogie Nights, Rear Window and Cool Hand Luke come to mind - all born out of my high school and college days.
John Madden
From reading this article, it sounds like John Madden is the Roger Ebert of football. “I don’t think there’s anybody who has made the N.F.L. more interesting, more relevant, and has educated more people about football than John Madden,” says Al Michaels, his play-by-play partner on NBC. (hattip to Kottke).
Sandra Bernhard is a Saint
More from the "with friends like these, who needs enemies" series. Sandra Bernhard tells her audience that she's going to get some of her black male friends to gang rape Sarah Palin. I'm sure Obama's strategists love this kind of help.
Update: Here's an article talking about how the vocal minority supporters of Obama, the extremists, are helping McCain get elected.
Update: Here's an article talking about how the vocal minority supporters of Obama, the extremists, are helping McCain get elected.
Fringe Sucks
Boy, is that title the understatement of the year. I woke up at 5:30am this morning wanting to come in here and write a long review of the second episode, but I won't. I'm just going to simply say that this show is one of the worst shows on television. And I mean that in the strict "genre expectation" sense. That is, there are probably worse shows out there - any soap opera, or maybe daytime talk shows. I hear the Hills is really bad. But what's different is that they aim to be topical and escapist, whereas Fringe aims to be an Important Television Show. So of course, you have to hold it to the higher standards, and when you do, you see it's maybe one of the worst shows ever made. It feels unbelievably formulaic - like an episode of Law & Order. Each episode, it appears, we're going to be introduced to a mad scientist doing mad scientific things, and by the end of the episode, they'll be caught thanks to the FBI agent who works with two other really smart mad scientists who also do mad scientific things. It is, in other words, a bad version of X-Files. Nothing feels right yet. The father-son scientist thing feels really contrived, too - like they created that teamup to give a simple formula and structure for each episode. I suppose every show has that, but this feels too much like it.
All in all, I'm giving the show a thumbs down. After two episodes, I don't think we'll be watching it again (my wife gave it the veto after watching it last night). Which is fine by me, as I'd rather watch an episode of House in the time it takes to watch an episode of Fringe.
All in all, I'm giving the show a thumbs down. After two episodes, I don't think we'll be watching it again (my wife gave it the veto after watching it last night). Which is fine by me, as I'd rather watch an episode of House in the time it takes to watch an episode of Fringe.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Cool inTrade Map
InTrade, on its front page, has a cool map showing electoral votes by state and the price of the contract coded in blue or red, with different hues reflecting how close the race is in those states. It's similar to a spreadsheet I posted a few weeks ago. Based on this map, all that McCain needs to win is pick up Ohio and New Mexico. That'll put him at 270, and Obama at 268. Virginia now looks like it's skewing Republican, but lightly. And if I'm not mistaken, whatever combinations you run, McCain has to carry Ohio. The quickest way to the finish line is Ohio and New Mexico, or if not that, then Ohio and Colorado. If he only picks up New Hampshire and Ohio, then he'll be one vote short. (Heck, unless I'm missing something, it'll be a tie if McCain carries all those red states plus Ohio and NH, as the tally for both candidates will be 269). Looks like it's coming down to Ohio again this year. I heard on the news that within Ohio, there are swing counties that drive Ohio. It's going to be a battleground in those counties fo sho.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Android - Sept. 23
T-Mobile will have the first cellphone on the Google Android OS out September 23rd. No word yet on pricing, but it looks like a Blackberry competitor with its slide-out keypad.
Becker-Posner on Prediction Markets
Becker and Posner, over at the aptly named Becker-Posner blog opine on prediction markets being used to forecast political races. I scanned Posner's, but read Becker's, and it sounds like Becker sees the markets as having some biases, despite their winning track records (the Iowa Electronic Market has successfully predicted the Presidential race every time since 1988, when it began). He thinks that because the bets are relatively small, the usual theories about risk and uncertainty don't apply. Instead, he thinks people bet because they get utility out of the bet, and so there's a tendency for a home team bias as people bet on their favorites, and not necessarily on the outcome itself. Entirely possible. But it doesn't explain the accuracy, if so.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Natural Experiment (Literally)
In the same vein as Card's classic "Mariel Boatlift" paper that studied the effect of immigration on domestic wages, a new paper does the same with Hurricane Mitch, which hit hard in 1998.
AbstractThe authors are Adriana Kugler and Mutlu Yuksel, and the title of the paper is "Effects of Low-Skilled Immigration on U.S. Natives: Evidence from Hurricane Mitch."
In the 1980s the composition of immigrants to the U.S. shifted towards less-skilled workers. Around this time, real wages and employment of younger and less-educated U.S. workers fell. Some blame recent immigration shifts for the misfortunes of unskilled workers in the U.S. OLS estimates using Census data show instead that native wages are positively related to the recent influx of Latin Americans. However, these estimates are biased if demand shocks are positively related to immigration. An IV strategy, which deals with the endogeneity of immigration by exploiting a large influx of Central American immigrants towards U.S. Southern ports of entry after Hurricane Mitch, also generates positive wage effects but only for more educated native men. Yet, ignoring the flows of native and earlier immigrants in response to this exogeneous immigration is likely to generate upward biases in these estimates too. Native wage effects disappear and less-skilled employment of previous Latin American immigrants falls when controlling for out-migration. This highlights the importance of controlling for out-migration not only of natives but also of previous immigrants in regional studies of immigration.
Monday, September 15, 2008
The Effect of 'No Tomorrow' on Today's Crime
An interesting new NBER working paper is online entitled ""Might Not Be a Tomorrow": A Multi-Methods Approach to Anticipated Early Death and Youth Crime" by authors Timothy Brezina, Erdal Tekin, Volkan Topalli. Here's the abstract.
A number of researchers point to the anticipation of early death, or a sense of "futurelessness," as a contributing factor to youth crime and violence. Young people who perceive a high probability of early death, it is argued, may have little reason to delay gratification for the promise of future benefits, as the future itself is discounted. Consequently, these young people tend to pursue high-risk behaviors associated with immediate rewards, including crime and violence. Although existing studies lend empirical support to these arguments and show a statistical relationship between anticipated early death and youth crime, this support remains tentative. Moreover, a number of questions remain regarding the interpretation of this relationship, the meanings that offenders attach to the prospect of early death, and the causal mechanisms that link anticipated early death to youth crime. In this paper, we address the limitations of previous studies using a multi-methods approach, involving the analyses of national survey data and in-depth interviews with active street offenders.
Reading the PCA
Tim Keller, responding to Greg Thompson, interprets Marsden and reads the DNA of the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA).
Which wing of the PCA are you?
As I read this terrific piece, however, it made me think about how we actually will have to do denominational renewal. The PCA is the great and tense place that it is because it is perhaps the only Presbyterian denomination that hasn’t purged or lost one or two of its historic wings. George Marsden says that Reformed churches have always had what he called ‘doctrinalist’, ‘pietist,’ and ‘cultural-transformationist’ wings. Weirdly, they all grow out of aspects of Reformed theology. Historically, they’ve produced some major splits--Old Side (doctrinalist) from New Side (pietist) in the 18th century, Old School (doctrinalist/pietist) from New School (reformist) in the 19th century. The OPC, though a doctrinalist church, grew and then shed a pietist wing (New Life Churches.) The CRC, though basically a cultural-transformationist denomination, had a doctrinalist split off (the URC.) In God’s providence, the PCA has significant numbers in all three wings.Now that's a facebook test I'd take.
Which wing of the PCA are you?
Doctrinalist
Pietist
Cultural_Transformationist
Other
More Guns, Less Crime 2
Regarding that paper, I'm not so sure about this. Moody and Marvell use lagged dependent variables with fixed effects, which are known to be inconsistent. You have to use the Arrelano and Bond estimator if you're wanting to explore the dynamics with fixed effects like that.
The paper also uses the Fryer, et al. crack index, which is good to see. Fryer, et al. mention that application on the last paragraph of the original paper (as well as to use it to re-examine the abortion-crime hypothesis).
The paper also uses the Fryer, et al. crack index, which is good to see. Fryer, et al. mention that application on the last paragraph of the original paper (as well as to use it to re-examine the abortion-crime hypothesis).
More Guns Less Crime?
For those who don't know the background to this, Lott and Mustard published "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns" in the Journal of Legal Studies in 1997. It spawned a bunch of papers (the original JLS has 165 cites according to google scholar).
Ayres and Donohue published a 2003 Stanford Law Review piece (disclosure: law review articles are not peer reviewed which doesn't help their case) that finds if you extend the original Lott and Mustard time series a few years, the "right-to-carry concealed handguns" laws no longer have an effect on crime. That is, they claim the original findings were an artifact of the number of years they used in their data.
Now I see that Marvel and Moody have a comment in the September issue of the Econ Journal Watch called The Debate on Shall-Issue Laws that do the same thing as the 2003 Stanford Law Review piece - they extend the data even more years, and the results return. Ayres and Donohue are invited to respond and will in the next issue (2009) of the journal.
Very interesting turn of events. I'm printing it out now. If their results hold up, then it seems like may be back to that same place of not really knowing the answer to the question. Typical of economics.
Ayres and Donohue published a 2003 Stanford Law Review piece (disclosure: law review articles are not peer reviewed which doesn't help their case) that finds if you extend the original Lott and Mustard time series a few years, the "right-to-carry concealed handguns" laws no longer have an effect on crime. That is, they claim the original findings were an artifact of the number of years they used in their data.
Now I see that Marvel and Moody have a comment in the September issue of the Econ Journal Watch called The Debate on Shall-Issue Laws that do the same thing as the 2003 Stanford Law Review piece - they extend the data even more years, and the results return. Ayres and Donohue are invited to respond and will in the next issue (2009) of the journal.
Very interesting turn of events. I'm printing it out now. If their results hold up, then it seems like may be back to that same place of not really knowing the answer to the question. Typical of economics.
Ebert's Star Inflation?
Ebert defends himself against the facts that he gives too many stars. Here are the facts. First, his reviews are, on average, 8.9 points higher than any other critic on metacritic (on a 0-100 scale). Second, he gives more stars today than he did in the early part of his career. I suspected the first fact, but didn't know it nor the magnitudes of it. And I didn't know the second. His explanations for both are interesting.
Part of what skews Ebert's ratings is, he said, the effect of the Siskel and Ebert show (and the later Ebert and Roeper show). Ebert has the unique role as a film critic of having to write reviews that can be simultaneously, and consistently, translated into two ordinal rankings. The first is to place the film on a 0-4 star rating (with fractions allowed). He says he prefers the 5-star rating, because it allows for a truly middle position (the 3 star), whereas the 4-star rating offers no such thing and thus forces a compromise on the part of the critic. But, his ratings have to also translate into a binary indicator review of 0 ("thumbs down") or 1 ("thumbs up"). This, he argues, explains why over time his reviews tended to creep up in stars. Before the show, he had no such constraints, and so he had far fewer stars in his ratings, but after the show, the binary indicator rating schemed pulled his reviews up a bit.
But he also gives a more detailed explanation of why he still consistently gives more favorable reviews than other critics that is worth your time. The first point is one that I share with Ebert, and maybe even learned from Ebert. If I did learn it from Ebert, it means that some of my best attributes as a human being were "caught" from reading Ebert's reviews of movies. That he approaches movies with an open-mind, warmth, hope and respect, willing to extend the story-teller maximum benefit-of-the-doubt on all things is, I personally believe, the only appropriate way to treat people and their work. I don't do it remotely as well as Ebert, because I'm not the humanitarian he is, but I aspire to it nonetheless. I'll let the Great Man speak, though, as he's better at it than me.
Part of what skews Ebert's ratings is, he said, the effect of the Siskel and Ebert show (and the later Ebert and Roeper show). Ebert has the unique role as a film critic of having to write reviews that can be simultaneously, and consistently, translated into two ordinal rankings. The first is to place the film on a 0-4 star rating (with fractions allowed). He says he prefers the 5-star rating, because it allows for a truly middle position (the 3 star), whereas the 4-star rating offers no such thing and thus forces a compromise on the part of the critic. But, his ratings have to also translate into a binary indicator review of 0 ("thumbs down") or 1 ("thumbs up"). This, he argues, explains why over time his reviews tended to creep up in stars. Before the show, he had no such constraints, and so he had far fewer stars in his ratings, but after the show, the binary indicator rating schemed pulled his reviews up a bit.
But he also gives a more detailed explanation of why he still consistently gives more favorable reviews than other critics that is worth your time. The first point is one that I share with Ebert, and maybe even learned from Ebert. If I did learn it from Ebert, it means that some of my best attributes as a human being were "caught" from reading Ebert's reviews of movies. That he approaches movies with an open-mind, warmth, hope and respect, willing to extend the story-teller maximum benefit-of-the-doubt on all things is, I personally believe, the only appropriate way to treat people and their work. I don't do it remotely as well as Ebert, because I'm not the humanitarian he is, but I aspire to it nonetheless. I'll let the Great Man speak, though, as he's better at it than me.
1. I like movies too much. I walk into the theater not in an adversarial attitude, but with hope and optimism (except for some movies, of course). I know that to get a movie made is a small miracle, that the reputations, careers and finances of the participants are on the line, and that hardly anybody sets out to make a bad movie. I do not feel comfortable posing as impossible to please. Film lovers attend different movies for different reasons, all of them valid; did I enjoy "Joe vs. the Volcano" more than some Oscar winners? Certainly.Ah, what a wonderful article. Seriously, if I lay dying on my bed, please just read to me Ebert's movie reviews. On my tombstone, put point #5 - something I agree with so deeply, that it's not even an overstatement to steal Robert Browning's lines and say that I love film genre with all my heart. I do not have the affinity for noir that Ebert has, but I have affinities for genres in general. I wrote a paper in grad school, for IO, on the "economics of film genre" that one day I'd like to work on again. It's just one of the most interesting parts of the film industry, as genre is entirely driven by the Invisible Hand of the movie biz.
2. Directors. There are some who make films I simply find myself vibrating with. I will have difficulty in not admiring a work by Bergman, Altman, Fellini, Herzog, Morris, Scorsese, Cox, Leigh, Ozu, Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Keaton...and to borrow an observation from my previous entry, I haven't even reached directors under 60.
3. I feel strongly about actors I admire, watching their ups and downs and struggles to work in a system that often sees them only as meat. Example. I opened my review of "The Women" this way: "What a pleasure this movie is, showcasing actresses I've admired for a long time, all at the top of their form. Yes, they're older now, as are we all, but they look great, and know what they're doing." Yes, I really believe that. I interviewed Candice Bergen for the first time in 1971. God, she was wonderful. I mean as a person. She was one of the most beautiful women in the world, and she married Louis Malle, and was happy. Louis Malle was beautiful too, if you know what I mean, and a great filmmaker. She fell in love with both her head and her heart. I felt a particular pleasure in seeing her and that whole cast together.
4. Once the scent of blood is in the water, the sharks arrive. I like to write as if I'm on an empty sea. I don't much care what others think. "The Women" scored an astonishingly low 28 score at Metacritic. "Sex and the City" scored 53. How could "The Women" be worse than SATC? See them both and tell me. I am never concerned about finding myself in the minority.
5. I have sympathy for genres, film noir in particular. I am almost capable of liking a movie simply for its b&w noir photography. I like science fiction. Ed Harris has a new Western coming out named "Appaloosa." I'll like it more than the Metacritic average. You wait and see.
6. In connection with my affinity for genres, in the early days of my career I said I rated a movie according to its "generic expectations," whatever that meant. It might translate like this: "The star ratings are relative, not absolute. If a director is clearly trying to make a particular kind of movie, and his audiences are looking for a particular kind of movie, part of my job is judging how close he came to achieving his purpose." Of course that doesn't necessarily mean I'd give four stars to the best possible chainsaw movie. In my mind, four stars and, for that matter, one star, are absolute, not relative. They move outside "generic expectations" and triumph or fail on their own.
7. I have quoted countless times a sentence by the critic Robert Warshow (1917-1955), who wrote: "A man goes to the movies. The critic must be honest enough to admit that he is that man." If my admiration for a movie is inspired by populism, politics, personal experience, generic conventions or even lust, I must say so. I cannot walk out of a movie that engaged me and deny that it did. I must certainly never lower it from three to 2.5 so I can look better on the Metacritic scale.
Lo Tov
... as the Hebrew say, "not good." Apparently, the new Force Unleashed is getting crappy reviews. As a story, it's apparently excellent - probably the best piece of storytelling to come out of Lucasarts since Lucas started making the prequels. But, as a game, it's apparently boring, linear, repetitive, etc. The boy will not be pleased. But, since my wife is not warming up to the idea of giving the boy (and his father) an Xbox 360 for the boy's birthday, it'll be a moot point to learn that The Force Unleashed is not the app killer we were hoping it would be.
I read the graphic novel for The Force Unleashed over the weekend and it is great - really great. It bridges episode III to episode IV in an unexpected way. Won't say more than that, but check it out next time you're in Barnes & Noble.
I read the graphic novel for The Force Unleashed over the weekend and it is great - really great. It bridges episode III to episode IV in an unexpected way. Won't say more than that, but check it out next time you're in Barnes & Noble.
Jack Bauer is a Hero
How awesome is it that Jack Bauer is going to stop child soldiering in war-torn Africa? But where's whathisface, the old friend of Jack who is now a terrorist? Since it's been like 10 years since 24 was on TV, I can't remember barely anything, but I do remember an old trailer showing Jack's former colleague now turned bad. Man, 24 is such a guilty pleasure.
Update: Oh I get it. This is a trailer for a two-hour movie, not for season 7.
Update: Oh I get it. This is a trailer for a two-hour movie, not for season 7.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Disenfranchisement of Voters
Another casualty of the war on drugs is the disenfranchisement of Black, underclass voters. As the prison population has grown, and as the selection has fallen heavily on young Black males, the very individuals most affected by rising prison populations have little voice in the overall direction of the war on drugs. It's good seeing this article in the NYT, then, reporting a changing sentiment at the state level as states begin to restore the right to vote to former prisoners.
(Hattip to Chris Blattman).
(Hattip to Chris Blattman).
David Simon Drug Prohibition
From that same Horby interview, Simon suggests the costs of the war on drugs are high, especially for minorities and the underclass.
I am unalterably opposed to drug prohibition; what began as a war against illicit drugs generations ago has now mutated into a war on the American underclass, and what drugs have not destroyed in our inner cities, the war against them has.
Old Wire Article
Nick Hornby interview David Simon, of The Wire. Simon starts off by talking about the uniqueness of the show.
... what you sense in The Wire is that it is violating a good many of the conventions and tropes of episodic television. It isn’t really structured as episodic television and it instead pursues the form of the modern, multi-POV novel. Why? Primarily because the creators and contributors are not by training or inclination television writers. In fact, it is a little bit remarkable that we ended up with a television drama on HBO or anywhere else. I am a newspaper reporter by training who wrote a couple long, multi-POV nonfiction narratives, Homicide and The Corner. The first became the basis for the NBC drama of the same name; the second I was able to produce as a miniseries for HBO, airing in 2000. Both works are the result of a journalistic impulse, the first recounting a year I spent with the Baltimore Police Department’s Homicide Unit, and the second book detailing a year spent in a drug-saturated West Baltimore neighborhood, following an extended, drug-involved family. Ed Burns, my coauthor on The Corner and co-creator on The Wire, was a homicide detective who served in the BPD for twenty years and, following that for seven years, a seventh-grade teacher at a Baltimore public school. The remaining writers—Richard Price [Clockers], Dennis Lehane [Mystic River], and George Pelecanos [The Night Gardener]—are novelists working at the highest level of the crime genre. Bill Zorzi covered state and municipal politics for the Baltimore Sun for twenty years; Rafael Alvarez, another Sun veteran, worked as a merchant seaman and comes from two generations of port workers. So we are all rooted in a different place than Hollywood.Now is as good a time as any to pick up season one and watch it. Watch it with you significant other.
Price Gougers and the Hurricane
I'm pretty sure this will come up on Tuesday in my principles of microeconomics class. Alex Tabarrok explains the fallacy price gouging to his mom. Like most of us having these conversations with our parents, he actually chooses to have it with his blog readers instead of actually with his mom.
Facebook Politics
Who said McCain is out of touch and computer illiterate? On his facebook page, he's got an app of
... a videogame called Pork Invaders. By hitting my space bar, I’m firing vetoes at pudgy pink pigs who stand for wasteful government spending. It’s a forgiving game: the pigs don’t fire back often. My veto-bullets will also take slightly curved paths, if necessary, to hit their targets. I’m pleased to kill all the pork invaders. My reward is a fact sheet that says Barack Obama has requested $740 million in earmarks — tax money for his “pet projects” — where McCain has $0 in earmarks. Hunh. Within a few more levels, I’ve saved the American people — says the ticker — some $4 billion. Game over. You can thank me later.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
What's it like to be a genius?
Jim Collins explains what it's like to win the Macarthur "Genius Award" (worth $500,000 bones).
But here's a little advice to the new fellows. If you're an academic, expect your colleagues to assume that all of your papers are being accepted - little will they know that your work still gets rejected regularly.
And expect not to have a lot of fun with board games. Trivial Pursuit has never been the same. My team always assumes it has the competitive advantage. But once I miss a few questions, my teammates turn on me: "What's the matter with you? You're supposed to be a genius!" The other team chimes in: "Clearly, the MacArthur Foundation made a mistake."
These unrealistically high expectations extend even to children's games. After my daughter recently beat me at Candyland, she looked at me, disenchanted, and said, "Dad, I thought you were supposed to be a genius." I tried to explain that the MacArthur award was for creativity, not genius, and that my creative work did not encompass the selection of colored cards from a randomly shuffled deck. My daughter just slowly shook her head and walked out of the room.
Superheroines, where art thou?
The American Prospect explains why, despite record box office hits and women going to see superhero films in droves, there's no plans to make a superheroine movie. Josh Whedon came close, but something happened with Warner Brothers and his Wonder Woman project was shuttered.
"Progress is slow and often nonexistent," Whedon said. "There's plenty of cool comics with female characters. ... But all it takes is one Catwoman to set the cause back a decade."
"Falling Man"
The above photograph was taken by Richard Drew on September 11, 2001. Esquire has a dangerously painful article about it, and of 9/11, that is worth your time.
From the beginning, the spectacle of doomed people jumping from the upper floors of the World Trade Center resisted redemption. They were called "jumpers" or "the jumpers," as though they represented a new lemminglike class. The trial that hundreds endured in the building and then in the air became its own kind of trial for the thousands watching them from the ground. No one ever got used to it; no one who saw it wished to see it again, although, of course, many saw it again. Each jumper, no matter how many there were, brought fresh horror, elicited shock, tested the spirit, struck a lasting blow. Those tumbling through the air remained, by all accounts, eerily silent; those on the ground screamed. It was the sight of the jumpers that prompted Rudy Giuliani to say to his police commissioner, "We're in uncharted waters now." It was the sight of the jumpers that prompted a woman to wail, "God! Save their souls! They're jumping! Oh, please God! Save their souls!" And it was, at last, the sight of the jumpers that provided the corrective to those who insisted on saying that what they were witnessing was "like a movie," for this was an ending as unimaginable as it was unbearable: Americans responding to the worst terrorist attack in the history of the world with acts of heroism, with acts of sacrifice, with acts of generosity, with acts of martyrdom, and, by terrible necessity, with one prolonged act of -- if these words can be applied to mass murder -- mass suicide.
Friday, September 12, 2008
McCain up to 52.9
Well, the unbelievable is happening. McCain isn't behind at inTrade, and he's not in a statistical dead heat. At least for the morning of Friday, Sept. 12th, after Sarah Palin's first real sit down last night on Charles Gibson, McCain has pushed ahead. At this writing, it's 52.9. Did not see this coming. I still think it's going to go to Obama, but inTrade says I'm in the small minority among better for the moment. I expect debates to skew Obama back up, but at this point, who knows - it's anyone's guess who will win. (If McCain wins, there may be some rioting in the streets though).
alt="Price for 2008 Presidential Election Winner (Individual) at intrade.com"
title="Price for 2008 Presidential Election Winner (Individual) at intrade.com" border="0">
Here's what we can see happening from the last two days.
So, I'm going to venture a hypothesis. This push ahead is due to the impact that 9/11, as an American memory. I'm not sure how to test the hypothesis exactly. Other things happened yesterday, too - like the Gibson interview with Palin.
alt="Price for 2008 Presidential Election Winner (Individual) at intrade.com"title="Price for 2008 Presidential Election Winner (Individual) at intrade.com" border="0">
Here's what we can see happening from the last two days.
Date Open Low High Close VolumeIn other words, opening prices have been ticking up on the McCain futures gradually over the week. Trading was highest yesterday, and before that, on the 9th. A 9/11 effect, maybe? Haven't heard anyone suggest that possibility, but one might presume that 9/11 would help McCain more than it would help Obama, since McCain has rooted his election campaign in the war on terror and 9/11. We see that yesterday, prices reached their highest of the week, roughly 9/10ths of a point above the 9/8 level, but closing at a deadheat. Today, though, we have the week's high.
7-Sep-08 42.35 41.1 43 42.1 2745
8-Sep-08 41 41 46 43.5 15004
9-Sep-08 44 43.7 50.5 45.1 27007
10-Sep-08 46.4 45 49.5 47.4 12255
11-Sep-08 46.3 45.9 51.4 49.8 29642
12-Sep-08 48.5 48.3 52 50.5 8539
So, I'm going to venture a hypothesis. This push ahead is due to the impact that 9/11, as an American memory. I'm not sure how to test the hypothesis exactly. Other things happened yesterday, too - like the Gibson interview with Palin.
Mom, What's a Duodecillion?
Kottke breaks it down so we can understand.
"[It's] a 99 followed by 39 zeros. (Put another way, if you had 99 duodecillion dollars, you could buy as many PlayStation 3s as you wanted. Blows your mind, right?)Dammmmnnn!
What is the Bush Doctrine?
TalkLeft take on Gibson for last night's questions to Palin when, as many liberal bloggers are noting, she couldn't articulate the "Bush Doctrine."
This is seriously nuts. Palin asked Gibson to define what HE meant by it. (NOTE: Stellaa points out that Gibson tried the same game with Obama and Media Matters ripped Gibson for it then. Guess Sargent is ok with it when it is done to a Republican.) Indeed, her eventual answer to the question is extremely sensible (unlike Bush and McCain's actual policies) and smart politics. She did not accept the premise of Gibson's question and then gave a sensible answer to the question. This type of stuff is what is killing the Left blogs right now. They look like fools when they act this way. The video is on the flip.Jim Treacher gives us his take on what the Palin Derangement Syndrome looks like by imagining the second part to last night's interview with Gibson.
Gibson: What do you think of the Constitution?lol.
Palin: ...Could you be more specific?
Gibson: [stares over glasses]
Kos: OMG SHE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT THE CONSTITUTION IS!!!!
Which Administration Does What to Wages?
Esteemed Princeton economist, Alan Blinder, had an op-ed the other day in the NYT saying that inequality shrinks during the Democratic administrations, but grows during the Republican ones. Today, University of Chicago economist Casey Mullgan shows some evidence to the contrary. At least for the "gender gap" in wages (ie, the ratio of male to female earnings for different age/education profiles), inequality grew during the Democratic administrations and shrank during the Republican ones.
I take all of it with a grain of salt. I just have a hard time believing either of those correlations has anything to do with a sitting President, personally. But I'd need to read the studies. Mulligan's is part of a 2008 QJE paper, but Blinder's is based on a book by a political scientist.
I wonder if you couldn't use the 2000 Presidential outcome, where Bush basically won the entire presidency by 20,000-30,000 votes in Florida (basically winning by random chance, since it could've easily gone either way), in a regression discontinuity design to estimate the impact of administration on earnings differences?
I take all of it with a grain of salt. I just have a hard time believing either of those correlations has anything to do with a sitting President, personally. But I'd need to read the studies. Mulligan's is part of a 2008 QJE paper, but Blinder's is based on a book by a political scientist.
I wonder if you couldn't use the 2000 Presidential outcome, where Bush basically won the entire presidency by 20,000-30,000 votes in Florida (basically winning by random chance, since it could've easily gone either way), in a regression discontinuity design to estimate the impact of administration on earnings differences?
Praying that God's Will be Done
Jim Lindgren helps explain the nuances to those who believe that praying that God's will be done is different from saying something is God's will. This is apparently lost on the many people who want to make Sarah Palin say something else than what she said.
Seinfeld-Gates Ad #2
I don't know, I thought it was pretty funny. It's like a Seinfeld show, actually - I have no idea what this is actually an advertisement for. It's just a short little funny story.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Presidential Candidate Calls for a Change in Current Drug Policy
Okay, it is only Bob Barr, but still.
When to Tell?
I didn't know any of this til Levitt blogged about it.
I guess knowing you have a Down syndrome baby well in advance could be useful for planning. What’s strange, if Palin’s reason for doing the test was early planning, is that she kept not only the Down syndrome news a secret from her own children, but even the pregnancy itself. “Not knowing in my own heart if I was going to be ready to embrace a child with special needs … I couldn’t talk about it,” she said.I think that is really weird. You hide the pregnancy and the condition of the baby from your own family? I wonder what was going on here.
She hid the Down syndrome news even after the children were told of the pregnancy. When the baby was born, 14-year-old Willow commented, “He looks like he has Down syndrome.”
Palin’s response: “If he does, you know you will still love him, Willow. It’ll be okay.”
It's Hard That's Why!
I just saw on someone's blog the following question: "We've been to the moon, but we still can't cure the common cold?!" To which I want to say (but didn't, so will here) - look, it's obviously a lot harder to create some kind of "cure" for the common cold than it is to put a man on the moon. You think just because you put the word "common" in front of it, that makes it easy?
Or maybe it's that we don't put more resources into solving the problem of the common cold because the benefit to society of doing so are not enough to justify how much time and money it'd take. All the time and money we'd spend on solving the common cold is time and money we wouldn't spend putting people on the fracking moon or figuring out some other important deal! Dadgummit I'm mad and yelling!
Or maybe it's that we don't put more resources into solving the problem of the common cold because the benefit to society of doing so are not enough to justify how much time and money it'd take. All the time and money we'd spend on solving the common cold is time and money we wouldn't spend putting people on the fracking moon or figuring out some other important deal! Dadgummit I'm mad and yelling!
1000th Post
I've now officially posted 1000 times on Scientific Pornography. That is both sad and gratifying. The opportunity costs of this blog are staggering! Why, I could've been riding down a mountain at 60mph wearing only a helmet, some gloves and a blue leisure suit instead of pontificating about sex and comic books.
Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD from adam kimmel on Vimeo.
Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD from adam kimmel on Vimeo.
Marginal Rates of Substitution
Fast forward to around 3:35 or so. First, how awesome is this scene? Answer: the most awesome. Second, I used the scene where Indy puts the bag of sand* in place of the gold idol to explain marginal rate of substitution to my grad students today, where the temple itself is on a given indifference curve. Apparently, Indy miscalculated how much a solid gold statute weighs. I'm no archeologist, but even I can tell that the idol weighed far more than the amount of sand he put on there weighed.
Here's Ebert's original review (4 stars) and here's his more recent review for his Great Movies selection.
* I couldn't help but think of Steve Carrell from 40-Year-Old Virgin comparing a woman's breasts to a "bag of sand."
Latest Palin Gaffe?
Man, the Democratic party just cannot figure out what to say against Pilan without sounding like brutal or petty people. The South Carolina Democratic chairperson, Carol Fowler, said the other day (maybe yesterday) that Palin's only qualification for VP was that she didn't abort Trig, her infant with Down's Syndrome. Wow. Today, she apologized.
I don't think it's Obama's team that is screwing this up nearly as much as it seems to be his peeps. With peeps like these, who needs Karl Rove? McCain's choice feels like checkmate sometimes, because while she has no experience - which is her one biggest shortcoming so far revealed - to talk about it makes us all wonder about how much experience is enough experience, and does running a Presidential campaign really count as experience? So her very weakness is maybe one of her biggest strengths as a runningmate. Egads, that genius. Not to mention that her overwhelming popularity among evangelicals and conservatives suggests that Rove was right - that the Evangelical voting bloc that got Bush to be a two-term President is still alive and important. Very important even.
If Obama loses this, it spells disaster for the Democratic party. This is his race to lose, after all. If you can't beat John McCain with his freshman running mate in a political climate like 2008, then seriously, you're in the wrong line of work. Or you've got to figure out how to diversify your base a little better so that it's able to get at the center faster and stronger.
I don't think it's Obama's team that is screwing this up nearly as much as it seems to be his peeps. With peeps like these, who needs Karl Rove? McCain's choice feels like checkmate sometimes, because while she has no experience - which is her one biggest shortcoming so far revealed - to talk about it makes us all wonder about how much experience is enough experience, and does running a Presidential campaign really count as experience? So her very weakness is maybe one of her biggest strengths as a runningmate. Egads, that genius. Not to mention that her overwhelming popularity among evangelicals and conservatives suggests that Rove was right - that the Evangelical voting bloc that got Bush to be a two-term President is still alive and important. Very important even.
If Obama loses this, it spells disaster for the Democratic party. This is his race to lose, after all. If you can't beat John McCain with his freshman running mate in a political climate like 2008, then seriously, you're in the wrong line of work. Or you've got to figure out how to diversify your base a little better so that it's able to get at the center faster and stronger.
Biden to be Withdrawn?
At this writing, inTrade traders say that there's about a 1-2 percentage point higher chance that Biden will be withdrawn than there is that Pilan will be withdrawn. But, they're both in the mid-single digits, so effectively low probability events.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Being Harry Potter
My six-year-old is reading the Harry Potter series right now. He finished book 2 today, and started book 3 tonight. He came out of his room with his book and a flashlight about an hour and a half past bedtime, and told my wife that as he reads the book, he sometimes feels like he's Harry Potter, and sometimes like he's in the story. My wife told him that that was one of the cool things about reading - you start to feel like you're in the stories.
Intro to Linear Regression
I'm putting together a class that's more or less an introduction to regression - enough of ordinary least squares (OLS) to be able to understand some empirical results, but not go any further. I wasn't sure what might be a good paper to help, but then Blattman posted a link to this paper, which was written for lawyers, housed at the Chicago Working Paper Series for Law and Economics. I'm on page 8, and it's great.
Get it Together
Several pieces in the news today all saying the same thing. Obama's team is not responding so well to this Palin announcement. They can't seem to quite figure out how to counter without harming themselves, apparently. I suspect that it's just taking the Obama campaign some time to regear and figure this out, and predict the McCain gains of the last week are not going to last. But, I think it also does suggest that the Palin pick was pure gold, and the McCain ticket is now more lethal to Obama than before. Obama needs to get it together and figure this thing out.
The Preferences of Kottke Readers
Kottke posted a survey asking readers to vote on the best TV show in history, excluding the current fare for the most part (like Mad Men or 30 Rock). After 3000+ votes, the results are looking pretty stable. The Wire leads by a huge margin, followed by The Simpsons, Arrested Development and Seinfeld. Very hard to argue with that rank order.
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