Link Banana

If you think of Mr. Krugman as an often shrill mostly political columnist — as I frequently do — this was something of a surprise. But the folks at Marginal Revolution are here to make sure you understand that this was actually closer to inevitable.

• Tyler Cowen explains — with copious good links — who Krugman the economist is, and why this was something of a no-brainer.
• Alex Tabarrok explains one of Krugman’s most substantial contributions: new trade theory.

Two semi-scientific surveys point to the facts that:

• Democratic presidents have been historically better for the economy than Republicans.
• A survey of 500 economists by Scott Adams (he of Dilbert fame) shows them more likely to favor Obama’s economic policies, nearly 2-to-1. (via /., Tyler Cowen comments)

Feel free to read as much and as little bias into these items as you wish.

Tyler Cowen points to an interesting argument: while everyone spent last year wringing their hands over the risks posed by unregulated hedge fund, it’s actually been big investment banks that are flailing and failing in the current market. A possibly takeaway:

Hedge funds might not have had all that many rules governing their behavior but their incentive pay structure seems to have regulated their risk far better.

Specifically: Why does India have so few Olympic medals? Tyler Cowen and others speculate. I do believe that cricket remains my favorite explanation.

It turns out everyone sees themselves as an above-average driver because we naturally consider individuals as more impressive than groups.

…we find it easier to consider the favourable evidence for a single person than we do for a whole group. Consistent with this is the finding that people tend to be biased when comparing any single individual, not just themselves, against a group of others.

(via Marginal Revolution)

What your favorite genre of music tells us about you:

POP: Conformists, overly responsible, role-conscious, struggling with sexuality or peer acceptance.

HEAVY METAL: Higher levels of suicidal ideation, depression, drug use, self-harm, shoplifting, vandalism, unprotected sex.

DANCE: Higher levels of drug use regardless of socio-economic background.

JAZZ/RHYTHM & BLUES: Introverted misfits, loners.

RAP: Higher levels of theft, violence, anger, street gang membership, drug use and misogyny.

(via Marginal Revolution)

A new paper (PDF) argues that though immigration has a small depressive effects on the wages of low-education Americans in the short run, it helps even them in the long run.

Using our estimates and Census data we find that immigration (1990-2006) had small negative effects in the short run on native workers with no high school degree (-0.7%) and on average wages (-0.4%) while it had small positive effects on native workers with no high school degree (+0.3%) and on average native wages (+0.6%) in the long run. These results are perfectly in line with the estimated aggregate elasticities in the labor literature since Katz and Murphy (1992). We also find a wage effect of new immigrants on previous immigrants in the order of negative 6%.

Calling to mind this post, new evidence suggests that vengeance decreases parallel to poverty:

The findings suggest that vengeful feelings of people are subdued as a country develops economically and becomes more stable politically and socially and that both country characteristics and personal attributes are important determinants of vengeance.

Perhaps more interesting:

Females, older people, working people, people who live in high-crime areas of their country and people who are at the bottom 50% of their country’s income distribution are more vengeful.

PS: My technological inability to link to a real copy of this study seems like a good chance to reiterate that all academic papers and publications — especially the publically funded ones — should be freely available.

Three random things:

• Feist performs a version of “1 2 3 4” — the song made famous by iPod nano ads — on Sesame Street. (via Austin Kleon)
• Chris Blake made a music video showcasing the Google results for “biggest regret.” (via Boing Boing)
  
• The word count of popular songs has increased. It was 176 in the ’60s, 436 last year. The untested consensus (to which I assent) is that it’s mostly due to the increased popularity of rap and hip hop.

Tyler Cowen (he of Marginal Revolution fame) thinks you should throw out less-than-great books you’ve read.

If you donate the otherwise-trashed book somewhere, someone might read it. OK, maybe that person will read one more book in life but more likely that book will substitute for that person reading some other book instead.

…A lot of books don’t make the cut of “above average to those readers they will attract” and of course since you’ve spent some time with the volume you ought to be in a position to know. (But note the calculation is tricky. Sometimes a very bad book can be useful because it might appeal to “bad” readers and lure them away from even worse books. Please make all the appropriate calculations here.)

The worst thing you can do is to give such a book to a friend or family member. You are tempting them, but with mediocrity.

So all you altruists out there, ready your trash can and exercise your elbow. See if you can toss a book into the bin with one fell swoop from across the room. The love of humanity demands it.

Tyler Cowen points to another astounding fact from this book:

Behavioral scientist Ellen Langer and her colleagues decided to put the persuasive power of this word to the test.  In one study, Langer arranged for a stranger to approach someone waiting in line to use a photocopier and simply ask, “Excuse me, I have five pages.  May I use the Xerox machine?”  Faced with the direct request to cut ahead in this line, 60 percent of the people were willing to agree to allow the stranger to go ahead of them.  However, when the stranger made the request with a reason (“May I use the Xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”), almost everyone (94 percent) complied…

Here’s where the study gets really interesting…This time, the stranger also used the word because but followed it with a completely meaningless reason.  Specifically, the stranger said “May I use the Xerox machine, because I have to make copies?”

The rate of compliance was 93 percent.

Tyler Cowen’s been evaluating the environmental impact of flying (first here, second in title). Though he’s far from a conclusive answer, intriguing facts have emerged. For example:

Cargo has to come into play, too. Regardless of what you pay and what fare class you’re booking in, your travel on United between San Francisco and Nagoya, Japan is going to have almost no effect whatsoever on United’s decision-making. They’ve got a very large contract with Toyota and they fill up their 747 with cargo and the flight goes out with very low load factors yet is still profitable for them to operate.

Tyler Cowen points to some interesting research:

Immediately after one person performs a favor for another, the recipient of the favor places more value on the favor than does the favor-doer.  However, as time passes, the value of the favor decreases in the recipient’s eyes, whereas for the favor-doer, it actually increases.  Although there are several potential reasons for this discrepancy, one possibility is that, as time goes by, the memory of the favor-doing event gets distorted, and since people have the desire to see themselves in the best possible light, receivers may think they didn’t need all that much help at the time, while givers may think they really went out of their way for the receiver.

Tyler Cowen points to a paper with an interesting contention: that criminal activity — especially financially motivated — is roughly synchronized with the timing of welfare payments.

This paper tests the hypothesis that the timing of welfare payments affects criminal activity. Analysis of daily reported incidents of major crimes in twelve U.S. cities reveals an increase in crime over the course of monthly welfare payment cycles. This increase reflects an increase in crimes that are likely to have a direct financial motivation like burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and robbery, as opposed to other kinds of crime like arson, assault, homicide, and rape. Temporal patterns in crime are observed in jurisdictions in which disbursements are focused at the beginning of monthly welfare payment cycles and not in jurisdictions in which disbursements are relatively more staggered.

Chronically losing out to the House’s privatized food service, the US Senate — led by Democrat Diane Feinstein — decided that it to would have to privatized it service.

The embarrassment of the Senate food service struggling like some neighborhood pizza joint has quietly sparked change previously unthinkable for Democrats. Last week, in a late-night voice vote, the Senate agreed to privatize the operation of its food service, a decision that would, for the first time, put it under the control of a contractor and all but guarantee lower wages and benefits for the outfit’s new hires.

(via Marginal Revolution)

Firm evidence that high gas prices really make people think more and drive less.

At 11 billion miles less in March 2008 than in the previous March, this is the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history.

(via Marginal Revolution)

I’d have ignored this story, except that it may contain the most brilliantly absurd advertising slogan of all time:

He added that anyone can buy a watch that tells time — only a truly discerning customer can buy one that doesn’t.

(via Marginal Revolution)

Not only do white patrons tip black drivers less than white drivers, but blacks do too. The same holds true for wait staff:

A cross-tab of the raw data (generously emailed to me by Lynn) shows that white customers tipped black servers almost four percentage points less than white servers and that black customers tipped black servers half a percentage point less.

This, however, is where it gets really interesting:

But as a law professor what is most interesting about Lynn’s article is his suggestion that an employer might be held liable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act for establishing a tipping policy that has a disparate impact against African-American employees.

(via Marginal Revolution)