EconTech

In some ways, I would give democracy a little bit more credit. In other ways, a little bit less.
For more credit, we could turn to Sen, his analysis of famine and democracy, and the now famous remark that ‘democracies don’t have famines.’ To some extent, this is an extension of ‘interest group politics,’ remarked on [...]

This paper is probably worth a read, the blog post definitely is. However, the bonds industry doesn’t sound exactly like a prediction market to me, at least not in the sense that it is usually discussed. If you just label any market from which you can deduce some probability, then I guess that qualifies. But [...]

Alright, a lot of people have Goolge-fever. I use the search and email, but only through IMAP. I have used google code (and have lots of complaints about it). Otherwise, it is “just there” for me (that’s not a bad thing!). However, I am excited about several new features that Google is rolling out (. [...]

Thank you Paul. I said almost exactly the same thing just yesterday w.r.t to several of James’ posts, though my Latin is admittedly weak. I hope to not see this (terribly annoying) fallacy again on Overcoming Bias. They might be able to ignore me, but not their own poster.
Knowing your argumentative limitations, OR “one [rationalist's] [...]

Nothing real deep here, but something definitely to keep in mind. Eliezer has a thing with the dust speck versus torture and the numbers ‘game.’ I suspect, though, that the issue could be rather quickly resolved by mapping moral evaluations to various types of sets. I suspect most people, or at least those vehemently [...]

For anyone who has thought about climate change, or any other major, long term policy, remotely seriously, the choice of a discount rate becomes a critical value in your model rather quickly. The problem is, of course, that it is a value that can substantially alter the outcomes of an analysis, but the choice of [...]

UPDATE (2008.04.13): This has gotten to be a very popular hit for people looking for a quick and easy way to uniqify their lists. The code that was originally posted here is still available here. However, it is ugly and buggy and was only meant for me to find when I needed it. If you [...]

I don’t know if I’d classify this as ‘linguistic’ incompetence. That sounds more esoteric than the difference really is, which is just a matter of basic biology. “Sexual organs” is, though, ambiguous. Bill here equates them to reproductive organs, which is my preferred interpretation due to the clear biological implication. But that means they are [...]

Certainly there are people who fall into line with James’ description here, but plenty of people DO have issues with the way bombing campaigns are conducted. There is a literature on the issues he presents, though he seems to be ignorant of that literature. Debates on casus belli and jus in bello would be a [...]

Ok, maybe that is a bit harsh. And I don’t really care about the parents reaction to the grading. Nevertheless, it seems rather obvious that teachers will be the major factor in determining how well a student does in a class. Just about everyone has had good and bad teachers. I’m sure, then, that the [...]

I’m almost there!! I’ve finished season 4 and the teaser mini-episodes to season 5. Just need to get 1,2, and 3 under my belt, and I can actually read these.
What Do Real Thugs Think of The Wire? Part Three
By Sudhir Venkatesh
Sudhir Venkatesh, our good friend and author of the new book “Gang Leader for a [...]

Dani summarizes for us:
Trade and the great divergence

Opening up to international trade raises the return to skills in advanced economies and reduces it in the less advanced ones, according to the standard factor-endowments story. If human capital accumulation in turn depends on these returns to skills, trade should enhance human capital accumulation in the rich [...]

DEA, not Dea. FBI not Fbi. HUD not Hud. Granted, we pronounce the letters of the first two, though they are not unpronounceable. But to me, an acronym is constituted as a series of the important words of a phrase or compound, proper noun. Downsizing the following letters places undue significance on the first letter, [...]

Picture of the Week
January 25th, 2008 by Paul Butler · No Comments

President Bush talks to an audience member after he spoke in Washington DC on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

This is not surprising whatsoever to anyone who has spent any time in Louisiana. When I was living there, people who had moved to the state would call the corruption ‘incomparable’ to what they had seen in other places, though it would take them a few years to discover exactly how bad it is. Though [...]