EconTech

Who Shall We Honor?
In the US, today is Memorial Day, when we are to honor warriors who died in our side of wars. In addition we are to honor all our warriors on Veterans’ Day, and our first warriors and politicians on Independence Day. We also have days to honor wartime politicians, one [...]

Teen Decomposes Plastic Bag in Three Months | Wired Science from Wired.com
(tags: science)

Al Jazeera English - News - Ex-Argentina President Faces Arrest

Economist’s View: “The Church versus the Mall”

Healthcare Economist · Does living in the suburbs make you fat?

Media Advisory: UN Official to Hold Hearings on Human Rights Violations in the City of Chicago | The University of Chicago

I’m posting this here simply to make sure readers see it, as I suspect they do not go back to the old posts particularly often, and they are worth mentioning.
First, I completely failed to note my gratitude to the Mansueto’s for their generous donation to the University of Chicago for the new library. Despite any [...]

The Puzzling Consensus in Favor of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which bans certain types of genetic discrimination by employers and insurers, passed the House by a vote of 414 to one, and the Senate by a vote of 95 to zero. That means it’s a good idea, right? Wrong.
Suppose an [...]

From the comment(s) on College Sports as a Fiscal Sink:
I think it would be great if collegiate athletics could generate enough revenue to make them self-sustainable. Unfortunately, as we have come to find out this is not the case as the operating scenario of collegiate athletics currently stands. I think one should note that there [...]

Economic Investigations: What to Do About Macro: A Demented Vision

Economic Investigations: Awesome Arrow Interview

Overcoming Bias: Anthropic Breakthrough

Grocery boost
(tags: poverty inequality)

Economist’s View: “The Politics of Human Capital”
(tags: economics)

I saw this in my FT feed:
Moody’s awarded incorrect triple-A ratings to billions of dollars worth of a type of complex debt product due to a bug in its computer models, a Financial Times investigation has discovered.
Internal Moody’s documents seen by the FT show that some senior staff within the credit agency knew early in [...]

The Dismal Economics of Big-Time College Sports

Every year the NCAA publishes a financial analysis of intercollegiate sports programs. Every year there is much bad news. The newly released NCAA report contains even more bad news than usual. Unprecedentedly bad news, even.
Is this because 2006 (the year on which the new report focuses) was an unprecedentedly [...]

Face It. Nukes Are the Most Climate-Friendly Industrial-Scale Form of Energy
(tags: energy nuclear)

FT.com / Companies / Media & internet - Eight ex-AOL executives charged with fraud

Dani Rodrik’s weblog: There are better ideas than Doha
(tags: trade economics development doha)

Many High School Biology Teachers Still Teach Creationism | Wired Science from Wired.com
And they say local control of [...]

Appeals Court Rules U.S. Bills Discriminate Against Blind
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON — In a decision that could drastically change the appearance of American money, a federal appeals court panel ruled on Tuesday that the United States discriminates against the blind because the country’s paper currency is the same size regardless of a bill’s value.
The 2-to-1 [...]

Debating Polygamy

What is wrong with polygamy?
Nineteenth-century Americans coupled it with slavery, calling both “the twin relics of barbarism.” Today, it is used as a scare image to deter people from approving same-sex marriage, lest it lead down a slippery slope to that horror of horrors.
But what, exactly, is bad about it? Looking at the Texas [...]

I’ve mentioned before how relatively useless the Solow model is and that it should be stuck in an obscure corner while the more basic lessons of 101 are further drilled into the heads of students (those lessons really do not stick particularly well, which is why the Solow model was needed in the first place, [...]

Ian Ayres has another post up on Freakonomics talking about commitment devices in the context of speeches particularly panels. Not incredibly interesting for the most part, except this great idea:
And here’s a final “why not” idea for better time-management at meetings. Let the last speaker on the panel (instead of the moderator) enforce the time [...]

Dani Rodrik’s weblog: Does the food price crisis enhance the case for self-sufficiency?
(tags: Food Production self_sufficiency)

Marginal Revolution: Wheat Prices are Down