Friday Links

No matter who is elected our fiscal affairs must be fixed. This is a nice lesson on the basic problems from the Wall Street Journal.

There is a large literature in economics on rent-seeking (think privilege seeking). This blog post points out the shameless lengths special interests go to keep the privileges coming. On a related note, when we increase the size of the government we see more of this kind of behavior because the prizes to special interests are larger than before. I have never understood how this lesson is not understood by more people.

While we are talking about rent-seeking I read a nice quote from the intellectual father of that term Gordon Tullock. He argues that economists should be actively engaged in public discussion on economic topics.

Also, just listened last night to this excellent podcast by Bryan Caplan on his book the Myth of the Rational Voter. It is 80 minutes but worth every minute of it! You are in for a treat that will give you some serious things to think about.

Friday Links 2/25

In 2000 John List spent a year at the University of Arizona with Vernon Smith, Mark Isaac, Jimmy Walker, Jim Cox, and a slew of other excellent experimental economists. Following that year List, who was already a frequent publisher in the area of environmental economics began using experimental methods and started his meteoric rise to his current professorship at the University of Chicago. Often he is cited for his breakthroughs in "field experiments" (although there were clearly many predecessors such as Peter Bohm and Vernon Smith); however, I would characterize his research as starting a renaissance with field experimentation. Nevertheless, the article is well-written and talks about a variety of interesting economics questions.   http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-23/chicago-economist-s-crazy-idea-for-education-wins-ken-griffin-s-backing.html

The Knowledge Problem blog provides a good post on why fair trade coffee may not be good for poor farmers.

Tyler Cowen discusses how to learn econometrics. Also, an addendum adds that Mark Thoma has a whole series of lectures on Econometrics on YouTube. I will definitely be brushing up prior to the PhD program!

Always love how William Easterly elucidates how development plans actually work, although sometimes you must get past the bitter sarcasm.

Friday Link 2/18

A few posts ago, Doug wrote on the field of inquiry known as Public Choice. Here's a public choice question that Doug and I have discussed between us: is there a public choice argument to distinguish the pros and cons of private industry unionization from those regarding public sector unions (that is, unions of government employees)? I believe that the answer is "yes." Through avenues such as a standard public choice argument of concentrated versus diffuse costs, we see that public employee unions can have disproportionate influence on elections involving their union. If that translates into disproportionate electoral success, that means the unions dominate the government body that they (the unions) are nominally negotiating with. This has been evidenced in school board elections (not infrequently held on dates different than typical "November" elections) in which unionized teachers are disproportionately elected as members of the school board. The end results is, in effect, that the unions are negotiating with themselves.

The paragraph above is a brief summary of these arguments. For today's link, I recommend the linked article by Prof. Stephen Bainbridge of the UCLA Law School for a more detailed treatment of this topic. (Notice that from his own imbedded link that Prof. Bainbridge makes arguments in support of private sector unions.)

Thanks to Legal Insurrection blog for the tip to Prof. Bainbridge's piece. Full Disclosure: I am an employee of a public organization in which there is a certified faculty union. I have chosen not to join that union. I have discussed on this blog my disagreements with some of the policies negotiated by the union, one of which had a negative impact on my salary.

Friday Links 2/11

This is a new wrinkle in the blog. On Fridays I will post links to interesting reading material that popped up throughout the week. Akin to a rummage sale, there will hopefully be something worthwhile in the pile.

Price Ceilings: Ok, this is old news; however, students tend to pay more attention to recent examples (rather than 1970s gas prices). Shortages caused by price ceilings are not fictional fairy tales or things of bygone eras. Ethiopia recently set price ceilings on a number of basic food items. The result? This article sounds the same as theory would predict.

Free Media: Currently Mark and I are writing an article about the LAPD and how William Parker reversed a culture of serious corruption. Corruption is a serious problem in developing economies. Media is one important missing link in helping citizens hold corrupt government officials accountable. Free African Media is a new media center that is helping to provide unbiased information to the continent. Here is their About Us page.

Tribalism: Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt turns tribalism on its head in his plenary talk to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. How much are conservatives discriminated against in academia?