economics
mikethemadbiologist | July 14, 2010I'm loathe to disagree with Digby because I think a variant of the Delong Rules of Krugman also apply to her too. Digby, like others on the intertubes, is very concerned about work by Brendan Nyhan, Jason Reifle, and others (covered in this Boston Globe article) which shows that:
Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It's this: Facts don't necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University…
emjohnson | July 11, 2010Three years ago I didn't even know what science blogging was. Frustrated as a freelance writer, I typed "science blog" into my search engine and was thrilled when this network showed up first on the list. Here was a community of researchers and writers whose love of learning and the sharing of knowledge was communicated on a daily (and sometimes hourly) basis. After spending much of the day reading through posts by GrrlScientist, PZ, Bora, Carl, Chris and Sheril as well as John and Afarensis I was hooked. I made a decision right then and there that I would write for ScienceBlogs. I…
mikethemadbiologist | July 8, 2010I've argued previously that economics needs to learn from biology and incorporate more of a data-driven, natural history approach. While mathematical models have their uses, it often comes down to those stupid natural history facts. The first example is given to us by Christian Wyser-Pratte by way of Floyd Norris:
....you work at an investment bank for 30 years, have a reasonable draw and cash bonus, build up stock in the firm as most of your bonus, and when you decide to retire you request of the partners their permission to go limited. If they assent, you get to withdraw your money over…
emjohnson | July 8, 2010In what was probably the worst idea since Crystal Pepsi, the corporate sponsored advertiblog has met an early and decisive end. The announcement was made this morning:
We have removed Food Frontiers from SB.
We apologize for what some of you viewed as a violation of your immense trust in ScienceBlogs. Although we (and many of you) believe strongly in the need to engage industry in pursuit of science-driven social change, this was clearly not the right way.
My hat's off to all the writer's at ScienceBlogs who put their principles ahead of their page hits. I guarantee you, however, that this…
mikethemadbiologist | July 6, 2010If you take the raw numbers, the 1982-3 recession seems worse compared to the current depression: after all, during that time, unemployment stayed above ten percent for seven months. But that's deceiving, because the composition of the workforce was different then--workers, on average were younger.
Here's how today compares with 1982-3 when broken down by age:
For nearly every age cohort, unemployment is higher now than in the 80s. Since the workforce is older now, and unemployment is typically concentrated in younger workers, if we had the same population demography we did in the early…
mikethemadbiologist | July 2, 2010Like Atrios, DeLong, and The Krugman, I'm old enough to remember when nine to ten percent unemployment was not only an economic disaster, but also viewed as an ethical and societal one. With that, I first bring you some ethics by way of the Slacktivist:
I'm not an economist, but we've got five applicants for every single job opening. If you tell me that the best response to that situation is to lay off hundreds of thousands of teachers, I will not accept that this means that you're smarter and more expert than I am. I will instead conclude -- regardless of your prestige or position or years…
emjohnson | July 2, 2010The latest issue of the journal Science has an essay by Greg Miller looking at the explosion of research into epigenetics and what this work could suggest about human society.
In 2004, Szyf and Meaney published a paper in Nature Neuroscience that helped launch the behavioral epigenetics revolution. It remains one of the most cited papers that journal has ever published. The paper built on more than a decade of research in Meaney's lab on rodent mothering styles.
Rat moms vary naturally in their nurturing tendencies. Some lick and groom their pups extensively and arch their backs to make it…
mikethemadbiologist | June 30, 2010One of the really difficult things for me to comprehend is why the idea of 'Fiscal Austerity' is so popular among politicians, especially too many Democratic ones, when Fiscal Austerity will lead to high unemployment. The null hypothesis of "people are fucking morons", while personally appealing, just doesn't seem to have explanatory power. However, Digby, as she is wont to do, clarifies things tremendously:
I have thought from the beginning of the crisis that this [the erroneous belief that budget cuts will create jobs] was a problem. I could tell from some conversations I was having that…
mikethemadbiologist | June 29, 2010Scott Brown apparently thinks helping conservative Southern senators is more important than helping Massachusetts:
A Senate bill that extended unemployment benefits, funded summer jobs and provided cash to balance state budgets is no more after a Republican-led filibuster couldn't be broken. Senator Scott Brown supported the fillibuster - he once voted against one - to prevent increasing the deficit.
The Senate bill provided $700 million in federal aid to Massachusetts that was expected to help fund the fiscal 2011 budget. Sen. John Kerry said it was a "terrible blow" to the state to lose it…
mikethemadbiologist | June 28, 2010If you don't know who Pete Peterson is, let me help you (We like helping!):
...we can now return to the never-ending attempt by conservatives to gut Social Security. One of the key figures and bankrollers in that attempt is financier Peter Peterson. By key, I mean that he has spent around one billion dollars financing the Peterson Foundation, which advocates various 'fiscal responsibility' measures (i.e., making Granny eat cat food) and slashing Social Security benefits... But as always, one must follow the money, since Peterson's 'charity' seems rather self-interested--and not in the sense…
stoat | June 22, 2010Some fairly random thoughts on the budget.
* VAT up to 20%: excellent. Calculating 17.5% was always so tedious. Score: +1.
* Child benefit and public sector pay will be frozen - for no clear reason we (as in, our family) get child benefit, which seems silly. The Economist wanted to means test it, but that would be dull and employ yet more bean counters. Still, it might at least ensure that only those who need it bother to apply. Score: -1. Public sector pay: well, tough. I got no pay rise in 2008 and I didn't see anyone sympathising. Score: +1.
* Personal income tax allowance: To be increased…
mikethemadbiologist | June 20, 2010One of the problems with the rise of behavioral economics is that too often behavior is defined as irrational, the result of cognitive screwups. I've dealt with this issue before, but James Kwak convincingly argues that the BP oil disaster is not due to a cognitive failure to assess risk:
I have no doubt that it is true that people have problems estimating the chances of certain rare events.* But to stop there is to whitewash the sins of the companies and the executives who created these crises.
First, it doesn't do to say that ordinary people are irrational in making ordinary everyday…
mikethemadbiologist | June 18, 2010By way Atrios, I stumble across a list of ways to combat unemployment put together by progressive wonks--and it explains why the so-called left is so politically impotent (I've removed the elaborative paragraphs):
1) Offer bonuses for long-term unemployed persons who find work.
2) Offer bolstered work-search help for the long-term unemployed.
3) Expand retraining programs and increase outreach.
4) Expand relocation allowances.
5) Encourage self-employment.
6) Expand work-sharing programs, and include incentives for employers to hire the long-term unemployed.
7) Provide generous tax incentives…
mikethemadbiologist | June 16, 2010Yes, you read the title correctly--I'll get to that in a bit. Nicholas Wade's article about the Human Genome Project (HGP), "A Decade Later, Genetic Map Yields Few New Cures" has been getting a lot of play. Thankfully, ScienceBlogling Orac summed up perfectly my thoughts about both the science and hype surrounding the HGP, so I don't have to. But this post by Mike Mandel has been getting some play:
My nomination for the most significant economic event of the past decade: The failure of the Human Genome Project to thus far deliver medically significant results.
I dunno: the collapse of…
mikethemadbiologist | June 15, 2010By way of Seeing the Forest, we note that at Miller-McCune, Beryl Lieff Benderly has a must-read story about the supposed shortage of scientists in the U.S. A while ago, I described the supposed shortage of scientists as a problem of incentives:
As long as financial 'engineering' is more lucrative than actual engineering (and other disciplines)--both in terms of pre- and post-tax salary--and has better job security, many students, particularly when too many graduate with tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt, will choose to do something other than science.
And consider defending…
mikethemadbiologist | June 6, 2010Because interest rates on U.S. Treasuries are dropping (italics mine):
The U.S. government debt is rising inexorably, according to the conventional wisdom in Washington, and the political system is too paralyzed to take unpopular actions to rein it in. Privately, many policymakers take it as a given that the situation will change only when the nation faces a Greek-style fiscal crisis.
But apparently nobody told the people who lend the U.S. government money. On Friday, they were willing to hand over their cash to the Treasury for 10 years for 3.3 percent interest, a level so low it implies…
mikethemadbiologist | June 3, 2010...Apparently, economist Christine Romer thinks so too (italics mine):
...hundreds of thousands of public school teachers are likely to be laid off over the next few months. As many as one out of every 15 teachers could receive a pink slip this summer, the White House Council of Economic Advisers estimates. These layoffs would be spread throughout the country -- in urban, rural and suburban districts.
Such layoffs are terrible for teachers, for communities and, most important, for students. For the families directly affected, layoffs mean not only lost wages but often lost homes and postponed…
drorzel | June 1, 2010Thinking from Kansas, Josh Rosenau notices a correlation in data from a Daily Kos poll question on the origin of the universe:
Saints be praised, 62% of the public accepts the Big Bang and a 13.7 billion year old universe. Democrats are the most positive, with 71% accepting that, while only 44% of Republicans agree (38 think it's more recent, the rest are undecided). I've said it before and I stand by it: conservative Republicanism is incompatible with science.
But looking at the finer details tells us a lot. The only group - gender, race, or region - with anything like the Republicans'…
jgoldman | May 27, 2010Some kids more readily recognize Ronald McDonald than the President of the United States of America. Sad, right?
Check out this exchange, from the 2004 movie Super Size Me:
Morgan Spurlock: [to kids] I'm gonna show you some pictures and I want you to tell me who they are.Children: OK.
Morgan Spurlock: [Showing a picture of George Washington] Who's that?Child: George Washington?
Morgan Spurlock: Good. Who was he?Children: He was the 4th president. He freed the slaves. He could never tell a lie.
Morgan Spurlock: [Shows picture that you can't see] Who's that?Child: George W. Bush?
Morgan…
mikethemadbiologist | May 22, 2010Unfortunately, Mark Twain's aphorism, "lies, damn lies, and statistics", has been used so many times that it's become trite. But, as I say repeatedly around these parts, you have to understand your data. A key economic statistic is core inflation, which is estimated by the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC). Basically, if the Fed believes that inflation is about to rise*, it clamps down on the money supply and slows down the economy (you didn't really want to be employed, did you?). So that estimate of inflation is really important. By way of Paul Krugman, we discover a very…