Chasing

This weekend Mark and I will be going out to Chapman University in California to take part in the Association for the Society of Religion, Economics, and Culture. The name is a mouthful so it will be ASREC from now on. The program looks really good. Check it out. If you see a project you're interested in I'll check it out and do a write up on the blog.

You might notice that Mark and I are both on the program. He is presenting our out-of-the press research regarding the Parable of the Yeast and I am presenting our research on the Parable of the Great Banquet (I'll let everyone know when they can get a copy off my website).

The crux of the Great Banquet research is that all of us are modern invitees to a banquet, what would cause us to accept or reject an invitation to the banquet? We believe it comes down to how a person values the banquet. In the lab we manipulate how uncertain they are about the value of the banquet. We also manipulate how much they desire other things besides the banquet. One of these "other things" we can desire is social status. We have a desire for recognition, to be the best, and known as the best. Excellence is a good thing, egoism is not.

I do not know if our readers like rap music but I have embedded a music video of my favorite rapper (and he's a committed follower of Christ) Lecrae's rap song called "Chase That" (lyrics here if you prefer not to listen)

Also, congratulations to my friend Brandon Vogt who will be appearing on NPR's interfaith voices segment. You can check his blog Thin Veil here.

The Answer is Blowin in the Wind Part?

A report in this morning's Wall Street Journal (unfortunately behind a subscription firewall) investigated federal stimulus funds given to alternative energy companies, and found that wind farms receiving a total of over 4.3 billion dollars in stimulus funds currently employ 300 people. Even if every one of those jobs is simply a creation of the stimulus package, that works out to over 14 million dollars per job.

"High Rates Don't Always Deliver ...High Revenues"

I was telling Doug that I have been deliberately not posting for many weeks, for the simple reason that many of the policy issues that I wish to address (such as the marginalization of the voluntary and faith sectors from the public sphere) have become highly partisan at this point in the election cycle, and I don't want to post a partisan politics blog. However, here is a good economics example from outside the United States. In the U.K. the coalition government imposed a new surtax on wealthy individuals. The result has been....lower tax revenue. Humans are not electrons; they adjust to incentives, and apparently wealthy individuals in Britain were easily able to adjust their economic activity to avoid the tax. Now, there is a broad call for repeal of the tax as a fear that Britain is losing a generation of entrepreneurs creeps in. Here's the article with the details (thanks to HotAir for the tip).

I'll Be Back

The scene was set. We had a good party going and one of the hosts decided to go catch his breath as he was drowning in school work. Now I want to come back to the party, but, I'm afraid all my guests have left. Nevertheless, I will write. Let me explain why (if there is anyone reading this still).

This weekend my wife and I were walking and talking about the future. She is in planning mode, submitting all kinds of forms for residency and she asked a simple question, "Given what you want to do, what would be the best locations for me to apply?" I stumbled.

Why? Because that would imply that I knew what I wanted to do. I feel in these last semesters I've become a little bit lost. The zeal for economics is still there, but, I feel tired and uninspired. I have lost my sense of direction and now, more than ever, I need this blog.

Though I am busy, yet I will be back with a vengeance.  

Progressives and Race

I've written on this topic several times, and here, in NRO, comes someone more expert than I to discuss the connections between the Progressive movement and racial segregation in the in 19th and 20th century Sadly, two of the most prominent Progressives in this article were leading lights in the emerging Economics profession. However, the prize for most outlandish proposal goes to the sociologist who promoted forced labor camps for blacks. Yes, let's have more national discussions on race, and establish once and for all who established Jim Crow laws, disfranchisement, and educational segregation.

What is Poor?

Co-author Brad Hansen sent this link to the blog Pyromaniacs, which combines the statistics of a BBC video hosted by Hans Rosling, the blogger's own analysis of the U.S. data in terms of the complaints of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, and Chrisitian theology.

Brad asked if I had any further thoughts, and the blog suggests several. One thing that I think we ought to consider at the start is that the terms "income" and "wealth" are often used interchangeably, and they are not. (Part of the problem is that "poor" is popularly used as the opposite of both "wealthy" and "high income.") I believe that I recall reading recent data that income in the U.S. has become less equal but wealth has not. How could that be? There are several factors, including greater life-cycle disparities in income that don't translate into wealth disparities, problems with valuation of assets (wealth, such as home values or even wealth intangibles like the social wealth of living in a safe neighborhood), increasing differential returns from education, income statistics that don't capture all aspects of government income redistribution etc.. I'll try to check this out further, and maybe post some other thoughts.

David Brooks on Inequality

I have mixed reactions to David Brooks, but his article today on "inequality" was thought-provoking. Even here, we can see the cultural divides between Manhattan/Chevy Chase and "flyover country". Brooks asserts that's it's not acceptable to wear clothing with religious messages. I think if Brooks walked around Tennessee or Texas or Iowa more he might see that a lot of people have t-shirts with explicitly religious or, more neutrally, "I love First Church" type messages. Nevertheless, although the article is humorous, I think it raises interesting questions for Christians. It would make a good single-meeting Bible study resource. (Thanks to hotair.com for the tip on the article).